Crossed Paths
by Moon Blades
Summary: Watching her disappear out of his afterlife was the acutest form of suffering for Grimmjow. Thinking that he had run out of lives to find her again was even worse.
1. Nine Lives

1. Nine Lives

There she went over the sandy slope, carried out of his life again over another man's shoulder.

Again.

Grimmjow tasted the Hueco Mundo desert sand in his mouth, could feel it blowing into the gaping wound at his shoulder where his arm had been ripped away. It should have been the priority pain in his mind and body, but watching Orihime disappear with Ichigo was far more excruciating.

In the gust of sand that drifted between him and the departing figures, they disappeared completely. It was always the same. He always remembered her too late, and she, him. Just once he wanted to recall their former lives before she was whisked from his grasp.

Maybe there weren't lives. Maybe it was just one. Maybe he just kept retelling their histories together over and over to himself, changing details, trying to round out their time together.

Or, maybe she'd never really been his.

Maybe she really did belong to that maggot Kurosaki.

The sand cleared and Grimmjow could see the top of her auburn hair disappear over a dune. He wished he had the strength to grin, watching her fiery hair set over the curve of sand like a setting sun.

He tried to mutter a curse, but his throat was too dry. No, if he had any strength left, he'd crawl to his feet and wrestle her away from that shinigami.

He wasn't sure if he'd closed his eyes or not, but his vision grew black, turning his thoughts inward. He didn't know why he'd remembered her so late this time – if indeed there had been other times – but it was too late.

Maybe it was because of that bat Ulquiorra, always flapping about her, cluttering up her thoughts, acting pathetic so that she would lean kindly to him. Or maybe it was because that bastard Aizen was so smooth and calculating that remaining the Sixth Espada had become nearly a full-time occupation.

Grimmjow lost count of the _maybes_ and sighed, a sound that mingled with the blood filling his throat, feeling himself sink into the sand. His only company in misery was his gaping arm socket and thoughts on a war not well-fought.

If he had another chance, another life to spend finding her and making her his again, he vowed he would get to her quicker, let nothing stand in the way.

Maybe she'd remember him quicker next time – time enough for them to start again, with each other, and shut everyone else out. Now the sand stuck in his open wound began to etch like the crystal glass shards he felt in his torn memory.

She hadn't remembered him at all this time.

Damn thick skull of hers, he thought. That's what it was.

It couldn't be that shinigami maggot...


	2. Cost of Freedom

The Persian Empire's vast expanses of scrub and rocky desert were no place for a misplaced Norseman. The unit Grimmjow was part of knew that even before falling prey to the Persian riders patrolling the desert's rough borders, but the point was driven home more when his unit was nearly obliterated.

It wasn't easy to survive that massacre, but Grimmjow had, and as the reign of Artaxerxes carved its iron notch into the world's timepiece of history, Grimmjow did what he could to survive. His tall and muscled looks were out of place in an otherwise shorter, dark-haired, dark-complexioned people. At least, what he could see of his semi-nomadic captors. Most of them were heavily-clothed, the women swathed in robes and sarongs, with himations encompassing almost every inch of flesh.

But he did survive, and within two months of his capture by the nomadic tribe simply known as Sultan Ramijh's caravan, he garnered a little more trust from his captors. Mostly, he knew, it was for saving the life of the Sultan's ninth concubine from a pack of wolves.

He stood at the edge of the grass-fringed steppe where it met the great desert, watching his charges. His new position as guard for the Sultan's many bastard children was nothing more than glorified babysitting, but it was better than being chained to a camel for another month. Besides, a knife in his belt was as close as any of the other legitimate guards were going to get to letting him be armed.

His hand rested on the pommel of the curved jambiya. In the Northlands such a dagger would be either prized as a battle trophy or laughed at as an ornament. But, it had an edge, and that was all that mattered.

The children he watched ranged in ages from four to fourteen, most girls – somehow – and amused themselves by weaving grass 'veils' to wear.

"Not that they need another layer of clothing," he muttered to no one. While the children were less heavily-garbed than their elders, they were indeed fully-clothed. His blue eyes followed one girl.

Orihime.

He knew her name, had seen her play and talk with the other girls. She was one of the many children of the Sultan Ramijh. At least, that was who she was _supposed_ to be fathered-by. Grimmjow wasn't so sure, not with her bright, copper-coin hair and gray-violet eyes.

The children moved marbles through the sand they had cleared of grass, playing games and winning marbles from each other. The marbles were the newest toy from their trading at the city a few days back. Most of the trade had been textiles and leather goods, but a few other oddities had been bartered. All the girls wore new sarongs and dresses, veils hanging loose to one side of their faces, smiles and giggles visible. Orihime was in periwinkle and lavender, her loose hair hanging with strands of amethyst-beaded silver chain.

Grimmjow watched her move, her play at marbles losing, saw the form of her sarong fold over her hip and bosom as she knelt at the game. She smiled despite losing, eyes flashing over the marbles shooting around the circle of clearing in the sand. Around her ankles, a young gray cat sidled, rubbing its side against her sandals, at its throat hanging a blue beaded collar. Orihime deftly petted the cat with one hand, watching the game. Grimmjow knew she was on the high side of age for the children's tent and would be moved to the young women's quarters soon.

He looked to the small entourage following the Sultan through the camp. He saw the man smile beneath his thick dark beard, saw the man's quick eyes fall on Orihime.

Perhaps she would be moved sooner, but not into the women's quarters, Grimmjow thought. By the way the Sultan's eyes moved over Orihime's bent form as she played her marble, he knew the Sultan was noticing the same things he had.

Orihime's bright hair was unlike the Sultan's and her eyes were unlike anyone's in the camp. No one could ignore those facts.

The children noticed the Sultan's presence. Each dropped their marbles and stood and bowed deeply to him.

Grimmjow bowed slightly. He'd come to terms with his new captor-master. He'd been spared the sword blade across his neck, but only because the right people deemed him trustworthy. He hadn't found the moment yet to take advantage of that situation. He felt the Sultan's gaze rest on him.

Grimmjow's northern appearance smacked in contrast to the rest of Sultan Ramijh's caravan. His Northland blond hair and strong build and blue eyes stood out as much as Orihime's appearance did.

But no one expected him to blend in; Orihime, however, was supposed to look like every other one of the Sultan's children. Apparently, her concubine mother had found time to dally.

Ramijh moved on and his entourage obediently followed, milling among the tent-city of the camp. Grimmjow looked back to Orihime, who had already crouched to play her marble.

Grimmjow and the Sultan had not been alone in noting Orihime's quickly developing female traits. Her body had run ahead of her fourteen years, endowing her with a pleasing form and rounded curves that turned every male head in the camp.

Concubine Number Eleven also noted the attention the girl garnered. She waited until the change of guards for the children that evening as the blazing sun streaked closer to the foothills at the desert's edge. She watched Grimmjow be replaced with another guard for the night, and then followed him on a parallel route through the many tents and ropes making up the camp.

Grimmjow didn't notice her until he reached the supply tents near the escort guard housing. He'd seen her before, knew she was one of Ramijh's top dozen concubines. He also knew she shouldn't be in that part of the camp alone.

"Here," she whispered hastily, clutching a cloth bag to her side. "Grimmjow!"

He frowned at her, unwilling to follow one of the Sultan's women anywhere. "Are you lost?"

"Of course I am not lost," she said, holding her veil closer to her cheek. "I have an errand for you."

He frowned, stepping closer. "My duties are limited –"

"I know what your duties are," she snapped.

He wove through the tents and hanging servant laundry strung on ropes between the supply tents to where she stood. She was older than most of the concubines, into her thirties, and not unattractive. But, beauty was what kept the status and ranking of the women in Ramijh's eyes, and Eleven had little time. It was inevitable that younger, more beautiful women would step between her and the Sultan's bed.

Grimmjow glanced over her, seeing the bag in her hand wiggle.

"Do you know the girl-child with the auburn hair?" she asked.

He nodded. "Of course."

She slipped her hand into the folds on her sarong, eyes steady on his as she stepped back into the shadow of a tent. "I've arranged a horse for you. Take the girl back along the trade road and kill her. I'll arrange for your freedom if you do this."

He shook his head. "She's a child."

"You're a killer," she snapped. "That was what your group was doing when Sultan Ramijh took mercy on you and spared your life. Killing a child should be easy."

Thoughts of a horse and his freedom hung heavy in the balances in his mind. "I could just take the horse and be gone."

She shook her head, eyes level on him. "Take the child back from the camp and kill her. If you don't return, I'll send the captain of the guards after you."

"I could tell them what you wanted me to do," he growled.

She shook her head, this time more of a sharp look coming to her kohl-lined eyes. "I'll tell them you tried to rape me. I'll tell them you stole the girl."

Grimmjow let one hand close over the nearest tent rope strung to the ground, leaning slightly to her. "I could strangle you here and no one would know anything."

"Then I'll come back and haunt you."

The words sent a chill up Grimmjow's spine, and he suddenly knew who the woman was. "You're one of those witches."

Her smile could be seen beneath the sheer blue veil. "Perhaps. Do this and I'll see to your freedom."

She pulled her hand from her sarong and held out a dagger, thinner and slenderer than his jambiya, but still curved. Before he thought, he instinctively took it.

"There's a horse at the last tent of carpets. You have 'til dusk to get back." She told him. "Orihime is at the edge of the camp near the scrub and rocks, looking for her cat."

Grimmjow glanced down at the sack Eleven held. It moved and a low mew came from it.

Eleven smiled more, stepping closer to him, bringing a warier stance to his posture. "Go now. Hurry back. Bring me her blood on the dagger and I'll get you your freedom."

Grimmjow looked down at the knife, watching it glint in the falling sunset.

Thoughts of going home to the Northland tipped the scales in his mind.


	3. Price of Freedom

Grimmjow's mind ran far ahead into the night, even as he took the horse Eleven provided for him down the trade road. The caravan had already made a few days' progress since the last city of any size and he knew his options were severely limited. Any decision he made would have to be hasty.

The horse was a leggy gray, wearing all the usual fringe and tassels his forcible hosts liked on their mounts, but it was quick and obedient. He cut off from the road as soon as he heard Orihime's voice in the scrub and boulders of the growing dark.

"Pantera!" she called from the collection of tall scraggly shrubs and rounded rocks. "Pantera!"

He almost laughed at the name the girl had given a simple cat. Any cat tied up in a bag was no _panther_. He glanced behind him at the camp. Torch lights drifted across the sand, accompanied by a tambourine and a woman singing. Soon there would be a change in the shift of guards for the perimeter and he would have trouble getting back. He didn't doubt Eleven would surely turn him in.

"Pantera!" Orihime called. "Oh, come out, you stubborn cat. It's time for bed."

Grimmjow turned the horse, following the sound of the girl's voice. He took the gray mount into the thick of the scrub, finding Orihime crouched amid the boulders and bunched bushes. She was waving one hand under the shrub, kneeling until she was nothing but a lavender-swathed bundle.

He cleared his throat. "Come on out. It's getting late."

Orihime sat back on her legs and looked to him quickly. She caught her breath when she realized who it was, and then jumped to her feet.

He felt the seconds passing too quickly. "You should be in camp."

"My, my cat is hiding," she said timidly, stepping back as he walked the horse to her.

Grimmjow shook his head. Whatever was in those bushes was not her cat. "Come on. I'm sure your cat is back at the tents."

She glanced beyond him to the lights flickering in the camp. "He's gray and has a blue collar."

"Yes, now come on." He nudged the horse a few steps when it didn't look like Orihime was going to make a move. "Up here. You shouldn't stray so far."

She didn't move as the horse stepped closer, and then yelped as Grimmjow bent from the saddle and scooped one arm around her waist and lifted her up. On instinct she fidgeted, and then shifted as he pulled her closer.

He'd intended to have her sit in front of him, but she managed to wiggle enough to end up sitting on his leg, side-saddle style, her posture stiffening in his hold.

"I-I should walk," she said as he headed the horse back to the road.

"You don't know how to ride a horse right?" He hitched her closer, hoping she'd throw a leg over the horse's withers, but she remained on his thigh.

"You mean, like a _man_ rides?" She shook her head. "Oh, no..."

"Women," he muttered, grinning some as her hair moved beneath his chin. It was soft, fragrant, reminding him it had been a very long time since he'd had his arm around something so soft.

Her arms crossed over his at her waist, her back still tense against him.

Dark fell around them and the trade road appeared only as a ghostly line in the desert, one of the few breaks in the tortured shrubs. Grimmjow turned the horse down the road away from the camp, keeping one ear alert for any sound of horse hooves.

Orihime's fingers pressed to his arm, soft fingertips feeling along the sinews of his skin. "You're warm."

Grimmjow nearly stopped the horse. "What? Warm?"

"Yes. You're not cold." Her fingers stopped, suddenly aware of what she was doing. "I thought you'd be cold. The others say your skin is cold because you're from the north. You have ice in your skin, not blood."

Now he did chuckle. "Foolishness. You can ask the whip master if I bleed blood or ice."

"Oh..." She sighed softly, and then suddenly straightened. She looked around, and then flinched to see behind them. "We're going the wrong way."

"No, we're not." He kicked the horse into a canter as his arm locked around Orihime tighter.

Her hands gripped, trying to pull his arm away from her. "Stop! Stop! What –"

He clamped his hand over her mouth and kicked the horse faster. He anchored Orihime closer to his side as she writhed and tried to scream, and then attempted biting him as he urged the horse faster.

He knew he had run out of time, knew Eleven would be debating her options swiftly. His mind tossed through several thoughts, discarding each, unsure if he was damning Orihime more than actually saving her life.

When the lights from camp were out of sight and the music had fallen away, he reined in the horse and took his hand from over Orihime's mouth.

"What are you doing?" she cried, wriggling again. "Take me back!"

"Stop squirming and listen to me," he said, leaning to her ear.

She held still, swallowing forcefully as his cheek neared hers.

"One of the concubines wants you dead and sent me to kill you," he said, disliking the taste of the words.

Orihime gulped, unmoving as her gaze shifted to him. "Who?"

"The eleventh favorite. I don't know her name."

She tried to take a deep breath, but her throat hurt. A sob caught her. "Why?"

"Why? What's it matter why?" He could feel her body tense in a different way now, her back pressing to him. "We're about two days from the last city. Follow the trade road back and don't stop walking until you get there."

"But I can't, I can't go."

Grimmjow lowered her to the ground, feeling her hands clutch his arm. "Yes, you can. Just get going and don't stop."

Orihime felt unsteady on her feet, her sandals feeling too heavy as she stepped away from the horse. She looked up at Grimmjow, shaking her head. "You're not...not going to do it?"

"No. Get going." He saw her shake her head, her lips trembling in absence of her veil hanging to one side of her face. She seemed ghostly in the high, pale moonlight that washed the color from her clothing.

"But, but why...?" A sob caught her words and then the tears started. She tried to check them, but they raced down her cheeks. "Why does my mother want me dead?"

Grimmjow's scowl set painfully. "Your mother? She's your _mother_?"

She nodded, sobs now in force. "I can't go..."

His hand tightened on the reins, mind twisting into a new direction of planning. "Get going. Don't stop. Now go!"

Orihime grabbed her skirts with both hands and turned, and then broke into a run down the road.

She sobbed as she ran, and to Grimmjow, those wounded cries were louder than the footfalls of her sandals in the sand.

He watched her until she had dissolved in the dark, like a gray ghost of robes. His training automatically came back, the days of battlefield and raid experience. He knew how blood thickened, how it dried.

He took the thin knife Eleven had given him and grasped the blade in his other hand. With a quick motion he drew it down his palm and then held each of the flat sides to the bleeding wound, making sure to redden the tip sides, too. When he was satisfied he had the right amount of blood to prove he'd stabbed a young girl to death, he turned the horse back for camp.

But his thoughts were still with the sobbing girl running for her life.

He knew she didn't have much of a chance against the desert night and the wild animals that preyed on whatever hadn't lived through the day.

He kicked the horse into a run.


	4. Ultimate Price

Darkness had fully fallen as Grimmjow reined in the horse amid the tents at the rear of the camp. His return went unnoticed by anyone except the pudgy eunuch waiting for him, the same soft-looking man who had given him the horse.

Grimmjow tossed the reins of the horse to the man who hastened to take them, and then he stormed into the lanes heavy with hanging laundry in search of Eleven.

As much as he wanted to rip out the woman's throat, Grimmjow knew it would be the last action he ever took if she so much as whimpered; instead he swallowed down some of the anger burning in his throat and kept quiet.

She met him in the center of the thickest shrouded alley of laundry, whispering quickly to him from the shadows when he nearly walked past her. She sunk into the darkness of laundry and deeper shadows and storage barrels when he spotted her. Grimmjow glanced around for any sign of immediate guards or other women. There were none – Eleven wanted no witness to her deadly request.

"Did you do it?" she asked from beneath the veil.

He nodded, seeing the thin material over her mouth move as she smiled. "It's done. I want a horse as well as my freedom."

"Show me."

The coldness in the woman's tone canceled any remaining beauty she had, at least, in Grimmjow's eyes. He looked askance at the lines of laundry, seeing no one, hearing only muffled voices from several lanes over. He took the slim dagger she'd given him and jammed it into the barrel lid beside her.

Eleven flinched, but smiled wider, eyes glinting at the sight of the red liquid beginning to thicken on the blade and handle. "Very good."

He subdued a growl, seeing the cloth bag still in one of her hands. It moved only a little, a low mew barely audible. "Our deal."

She nodded, gripping her fingers around the dagger handle. It took a moment for her to pull the knife from the wooden top, and when she did, her eyes lit with victory.

Grimmjow had seen the look of victory in many forms over the course of his travels from the Northlands, but never on a woman, and never like this.

She raised the knife and with a nimble finger, loosened her veil, and then licked the blade.

The unsettling gleam of delight faded from her face as she tasted the blood. Her attention snapped to him, her veil forgotten. "This isn't hers. It isn't even a woman's." Her gaze dropped to his hands, seeing him ball one into a fist. "It's yours?"

He held his hand tight, wishing it were around her neck. "She's gone. She –"

"You failed." She shook her head, trembling as she took a shaky breath. "You didn't do it."

"You're a sick she-serpent," he muttered, stepping near her as she held the bag tighter. "You'd have a child killed? Your own child?"

Her eyes narrowed, the kohl creasing into thick lines at their corners. She stepped back, quickly estimating him, knowing his reflexes and strength far surpassed hers or any aid she could summon quickly enough. "Your blood on the knife," she said in a chant-like tone, "the cat for your life."

"What are you talking about?" He took another step as she put the fidgeting bag on the barrel top.

"Your blood for your life," she said, raising the knife over the bagged cat, "and the cat for your life!" she hissed.

The dagger blade slammed into the bag, pinning the writhing cat inside to the barrel.

A strangulated cat-cry came from the bag as it twisted in pain.

Grimmjow had grabbed for the woman as she stabbed the bag, but the movement was never completed. A sharp pain wracked his stomach, like a sword blade shearing him in half. He dropped to his knees before her, doubling over, half-blind from the pain, the night seeming to eclipse his vision.

"You..." he began, but the words changed in his throat, changed to something that no longer formed words, only sounds. A growl surfaced as he put one hand to the ground as the cutting pain laced through him.

"No..." Eleven said, stepping back from him even as the cat's whimpering cries faded lower. "You're supposed to trade lives...not become..."

Grimmjow's attention was locked on his hand – now a paw – that rested near her sandal. His wrist stiffened into a fur-covered leg – a panther's leg – and long talons extended from his fingers. His whole body felt as if it were shifting, changing, taking on movements he wasn't making. His very skin felt like it was stretching, nearly tearing in spots, and his teeth felt as if they no longer fit his mouth. He growled, not completely aware of the cat-like form his body was now taking. He looked up at Eleven.

Before his eyes, her clothes lost color, only shades of gray and black and white sharpening into focus as she stared back at him with disbelief. When he opened his mouth to promise her certain death, only a snarl came out.

And then on instinct, he launched at her, but rather than a man, he was now fully cat, a panther, Eleven's spell having missed her goal. He shoved her into the smaller barrels behind her and swiped the veil hanging at her temple. His claws opened her throat, leaving three long lacerations from his new talons.

He scowled into a snarl, confused and still in pain, watching the woman's scream die in her opened throat.

"What's that?" a man yelled from a nearby tent. "A lion?"

"Sounds like a lion!" another man shouted.

Grimmjow eased back from the woman who was trying to roll away from under him. He mashed one paw on her shoulder, hearing her weak cries as her blood reddened the sand from her oozing neck.

"Get torches! Quick! Alert the guards!"

Grimmjow shook his head in bewilderment and then pounced off the woman. He tore through the laundry, now with the agility and quietness of a panther, keeping low until he cleared the main alley, and then leaped over the stack of barrels at the opening of the hanging laundry that led into the main camp.

"A panther! Get it! Bring bows!"

Grimmjow ran on, now with ground-devouring strides on padded feet, ignoring the sharp pain in his stomach where the knife had left a hole in the domestic cat still pinned to the barrel.

Under the filmy moon he bolted from the camp and crossed the desert quickly and intercepted the trade road. He followed it, still running at an easy lope, knowing – instinctively – that even the fastest of the horses from the camp couldn't catch him. He tried to shake the odd sensations now coursing through his mind. They were foreign thoughts, ones of food and water, and it was growing difficult to bring back his most recent memories with his shortening thoughts.

Each time his paw hit the sand, it felt more natural. Walking upright now seemed so obvious, so dangerous, and so slow. He loped on, cat-like prowess developing and taking over. He dropped to a trot once he'd left the camp far behind, and then lowered his head to sniff the ground when he came to a spot that seemed familiar.

He stopped and looked around, sharp eyes taking in the gray landscape, searching for movement. He could still smell her.

Orihime.

He tried to keep her name in his slowly simplifying mind. He trotted on, a jog that was silent and less taxing. He could smell water in the air, and it nearly lured him away from the road.

Thoughts of the girl kept him on the road, sniffing the air, smelling the faint scent of perfume that accompanied his memories of Orihime. Grimmjow tried to think back, wonder why it had happened, but that dead cat in the bag on the barrel was fast-becoming a strange thought to attempt capturing.

He rounded a curve in the road and then stopped. Ahead lay a scarf, the color uncertain in his vision. He slowly approached it, wary of any other movement in the region. The scent of something soft, something he was slowly losing words for, pervaded the air. It grew stronger as he neared the scarf, and when he sniffed it, for a moment Grimmjow could recall Orihime's soft body against his side when he'd carried her away from camp on the horse.

But then the sensory memory drifted away like a skiff of sand. He sniffed the scarf, smelling only the deft but alien scent of perfume. He smelled no blood, but there was a long rip in the material. For a fleeting moment he wondered what color it was.

And then, the concept of color faded, and Orihime's name slipped from his mind.

The large cat, formerly a man named Grimmjow, turned and trotted off the trade road in search of water, forgetting the girl in the scarf.


	5. Second Life

Orihime kneeled at the edge of Sora's cot in their humble, three room shack of a dwelling and watched her brother pack his bag.

"But I don't want you to go," she said for the tenth time that day. She kept her voice low, not wanting to disturb their mother while she earned their side-livelihood. It wasn't a necessary task – her mother's prostitution – and Orihime secretly thought her mother reveled in the attention of strange men. She leaned closer as Sora knotted the bag. "Take me with you. I'll keep up. I won't be in the way. I'll help."

He smiled at her, hating to leave her alone with their wretch of a mother. "A ship is no place for a girl, Orihime."

"But...I'm strong, Sora." She stood up when he did. "I'll do my best. I can pull ropes. I can...fish."

He ruffled her hair that hung loose from her scarlet hood at her shoulders. "There are too many men aboard a ship for you to be safe."

"I'll dress as a boy," she offered, smiling, nodding hopefully. "I'll go in disguise."

He chuckled lowly, shaking his head as he glimpsed her shapely form in the dark blue smock. "No one will ever mistake you for a boy, sister. Not in a million years. Even at fourteen, you're more woman than most village girls." He heaved the sack over his shoulder. "Now be good, and stay out of her way, and I'll return as soon as I can."

She shook her head, feeling her hope slip away as he stepped to the curtain that divided their sleeping quarters in the small room. "How long will you be gone?"

"Purple is new in the province," he said, the concept livening his expression. "Trade is flourishing and every galley is in need of crews. I'll make enough to come back and take you out of here. Maybe even within the year."

She sniffed back the sob that wanted out, following him through the small dwelling to the main room they used for cooking and spinning. All around them, large spools of dyed wool awaited spinning into thread. That would be Orihime's task; her mother showed less and less interest in such jobs.

Their mother's flirty laugh came from her room beyond the main room. Orihime didn't look there.

"I don't want you to go without me." She looked up as Sora put a hand on her shoulder. "Please stay."

"I'm making a better life for us." He kissed the top of her head, hating to leave her. "I promise."

She nodded slowly.

He opened the door and left into the darkness.

Orihime closed and locked the door after him.

Without Sora, there was little to stand between her and her mother's fleeting interests and the men who visited, some of whom had begun to notice the girl's developing charms.

She went to the spinning wheel and turned up the oil lamp that hung near it. Maybe if she ran the wheel enough to fill a spool, she wouldn't hear the noises from the other room.

* * *

Running the wheel didn't work that night, and Orihime soon set off on her own into the cold night. The early winter night was graced with a full moon, the pale disk in the dark skies shedding gray light over the woods as she wandered. There was no snow yet, but there would be soon. Where she lived in the Phoenician-influenced regions that would dissolve into Spain in later centuries, Greek and Roman manipulation had resulted in an upturn in textile trade, among them beautifully dyed thread and fabric.

Orihime's mother was a talented weaver and had taught Orihime much; but since those early days, the woman's passions had turned, and now much of the weaving and spinning fell to Orihime. Somehow, however, there was never enough money to move from the rubble of a dwelling she called home.

Sora wanted to change that.

"Rome," he told Orihime on many evenings as they slept in the small room with the curtain dividing them. "That is where your talents could make money. Lots of fishing and merchants there. That is where we should be, Orihime."

She let those words flit through her mind as she roamed the woods, preferring them to the noises coming from her mother's room at home. She knew the woods were dangerous at night – wolves prowled, and there was even the rumor of a large cat, a panther, who hunted the thick forest.

Not just any panther, she had heard: a blue panther.

She didn't believe it. She wasn't too worried about encountering such a beast – if one indeed did exist; and as for wolves, well, there were plenty of farms with sheep and pigs between her and any wild beast.

At least, she hoped so.

She sighed, looking up at the starlit skies, clutching her red cloak close. She knew the path by heart, and often delivered dyed yarn and bolts of cloth to several of the tailors in the village closer to the harbor.

That was where Sora had went – the Mediterranean.

She was still looking up at the stars, thinking of her brother, wondering if he could see the same pattern of lights in the heavens that she did, when a low growl came from behind her.

Orihime spun around, blinking quickly in the cold air. At first there was nothing to see in the crisp night, only her breath frosting amid the mature trees bare of any leaves and the sharp, jutting brush devoid of foliage. She backed up, swallowing carefully as her heart seemed to lift into her throat.

The growl came again, and then another, from another direction.

From the dark, two wolves emerged, heads hung low, watching her with glinting gold eyes as they salivated at the prospect of fresh flesh. They stepped closer, growling and licking their drooling lips. Orihime shook her head slightly, taking several careful steps backwards. A third form, the largest wolf yet, suddenly leaped at her from the dark.

Orihime turned and ran. She raced through the dark, her thin shoes little protection from the thorny brush she ran through. She ran on, hearing the wolves charge after her, their crashing through the brambles and underbrush as they neared.

_Sora_, she thought, praying for him to lend her speed to outrun the savage beasts closing in behind her. _Please, Sora!_

There was no answer to prayer, and she ran on, hearing the wolves closing in, feeling her red cloak snag trees and brush and she fled. She dodged the thickest part of the birch trees, her feet tearing over the frozen ground and through tall brush. The panting of the wolves grew louder, the snarling and snapping of jaws making Orihime nearly choke as she hastened.

And then she was caught. A powerful set of jaws clamped around her cloak and wrenched Orihime to a stop. She was flung onto the cold ground, the air forced from her lungs. She rolled away from the wolf biting her cloak, but it shook its head, dragging her closer.

A second wolf leaped over the first chomping her cloak and Orihime had to twist away to avoid its claws. She kicked at it, making contact with its jaw. It howled and snarled again, snapping as she raised an arm to cover her face. The wolf's teeth bared, dripping foul-smelling saliva, eyes shining in the moonlight. The other wolves closed in behind it, and then the first lunged at her.

The fanged face was still striking toward Orihime when a furry blue form charged between them. It knocked the wolf off of her and tumbled to the ground with the wolf's thick neck clamped in its jaws.

Orihime scrambled backwards, as far as she could with the other wolf still clutching her cloak in its mouth. She watched in horror as the blue panther crashed the wolf into a birch trunk and then shook its entire body by the scruff of its neck. The wolf howled in pain and tried to squirm away, but the large cat drove it into the ground, paws tearing it open from throat to shoulder.

Orihime couldn't utter a sound, too frightened at the spectacle as the panther's growling overrode the wolf's cries. The other two wolves backed away, one still with Orihime's cloak in its mouth, which was beginning to sag open. The panther slashed a final time on the crippled wolf's torn body and turned on Orihime and the set of wolves.

For a second, Orihime only stared back at the brilliant blue of the animal's eyes, startled at the color and clarity. It glared at her for a few seconds, mouth trembling in a snarl over long fangs as its attention turned to the wolves still hovering over her. As if with unspoken commands, the wolf dropped the cloaked and leaped away, followed by the third wolf.

The panther chased after them.

Orihime didn't hesitate to question her fortune. She leaped up and took off for home. She raced on, hearing the animal bodies tear through the woods. Howling and panther hissing burst from behind her. She ran on, barely breathing.

_So there was a blue panther,_ she thought, trying to catch her breath as she ran. _It was true!_

She circled back at the stand of hickory trees, knowing she had run in the wrong direction in her haste to flee the wolves. _A large blue panther, with blue eyes._

_How odd._ And how odd that those eyes seemed so familiar to her.

She ran on, and then slowed just a bit when she heard footfalls behind her. She dashed into the thicker trees, and then half turned to look behind.

Within the moon's light, the blue panther chased after her, paws tearing over the ground in low, calculated strides.

Orihime caught her breath and turned, racing on.

She'd seen the cat tear into the wolf's body like it was mere gauze, had seen it thrash the large animal into shreds with a few strokes of those talons. She ran, hearing the panther close in on her. _Oh, no_, she thought, calling upon Sora again. _What good is it to trade one attack for another?_

She ran faster, nearly spent from the long race in the cold night. And then suddenly, a force leapt onto her back and knocked her to the ground. She hit the unrelenting ground with a jolt that made her lose her breath, and quickly tried to move out from under the heavy weight of the paws on her back.

"No!" she cried, fidgeting away and flipping to her back.

The panther didn't follow, instead standing on her cloak, trapping her within a few feet.

Orihime pulled at the material, but not too much, eyes locked on those of the cat.

It growled at her, watching her with narrowed eyes as its mouth quivered around bared fangs.

Orihime shook her head, swallowing painfully as her hand closed around her cloak edge. "...Please be nice," she said, knowing how silly it sounded. "Thank you. But..."

The panther stepped closer, paws on her cloak until she couldn't budge away. She held her breath as the cat's face moved to hers, sniffing, its curled lips easing from their snarl. She let one elbow rest to her side for support, afraid to take her eyes from the cat's as it lingered inches from her face. For a long moment it sniffed her cheek, its whiskers feathering across her face, warm breath steaming in the chilly air.

Orihime didn't breathe, able only to stare back at the cat's large eyes until she recalled that doing so may be considered a challenge to the large animal. She exhaled a shaky breath as its head moved to her shoulder, pausing at her throat.

The cat took its time considering her, sniffing her skin where the cloak was clasped at her neck, and then swinging its head to her stomach. Orihime tried to remain perfectly still, but the warm breath from the panther reached through the material of her dress, making her nearly smile at the faint sensation.

"I'm grateful," she said softly, chancing to voice her relief at escaping the wolves.

The panther's head pricked up from her torso, eyes unlinking on her as the low growl came back to its throat.

"...Th-thank you." She swallowed down the terror that had welled in her throat again as the cat moved one paw to her opposite hip, effectively pinning her down on either side by the cloak. She dropped lower to the ground as the cat's face neared hers, the muzzle lowering to her throat.

Now the breath on her skin was damp and warm, the whiskers touching under her chin. Orihime didn't move, hoping the panther would decide she didn't smell tasty or was too big to drag away. Instead, its tongue licked her throat, the growl nearly a purr, sniffing as it moved. Orihime's shock kept her still as the cat licked her throat a few times with long strokes, and then moved to her ear, sniffing and making shorter licks along her jaw.

"You're not going to...rip me apart?" she said in a whisper. She shakily sighed in relief, watching the back of the cat's head as it sniffed her hair. She stifled a small giggle.

She raised one hand and slowly moved her fingers to the cat's shoulder, and then stopped as its head flicked to her face again. This time the piercing blue eyes dared her to move.

She smiled slowly, letting her hand rest higher on its shoulder, feeling the thick fur overtop the powerful muscles. "You're soft," she said, hoping for the purr to come back. Instead the growl resumed. She let her hand drop slowly. "...I'm sorry...I'm –"

"There it is!" A man's voice broke the still air.

The panther's head snapped up from Orihime's face and its sharp eyes searched the night for the intrusion.

"That way!" another man called. "The blue panther!"

"It ate two of my sheep!" a third man added.

Sounds of running feet drew nearer to Orihime and the panther.

"It killed my dog and my mare!"

Orihime knew she should be frightened, but at that moment, all she could think of was that the people would run off the panther. Her rescuer.

"Get it!"

"Maybe it was the wolves?" Someone added a new idea of villain to the men nearing the trees where Orihime and the panther were.

"Wolves? No! It was the panther!"

The panther stepped back from Orihime's cloak, and she sat up slowly. It still watched the dark woods, gaze flicking back and forth as the voices called through the night. Orihime saw the cat tense, the muscles bunch at its blue shoulders, its thick tail twitching with growing irritation.

And then without even glancing at her, the panther wheeled around and leaped away into the night. Orihime scrambled to her knees and then her feet, searching the trees for it.

The cat was nowhere to be seen.

The voices of the men grew louder.

Orihime sighed, smiling more as she imagined the panther running sleekly through the trees, outrunning any chance of capture.

"Here!" she cried out when the men's voices grew louder. "Over here! I, I saw the wolves!"


	6. Honey and Dreams

"I said to pack up," Orihime's mother repeated, this time more sharply when Orihime didn't respond. "We're moving."

Orihime only shook her head as she stared up at the older woman as her hands paused stacking the kindling at the hearthside. "But...why? Where to?"

"There's better coin to be made in town. This place is too cold in the winter, and with Sora having abandoned us, we're better off in the town."

Orihime automatically stacked the kindling beside the stone fireplace in their small shack of a dwelling. The nights had turned cold since her encounter with the wolves and the wild, blue panther. Her mother had laughed at the story of her rescue; the neighboring farmers, however, hadn't been so amused when the word spread.

They wanted to hunt down the panther and kill it, but Orihime had insisted on her story, how the cat had saved her from certain death by the wolves' vicious assault.

"It'll kill again," had been the only answer she got from the well-meaning men. "It will kill you, too, girl, when it gets hungry. Wild animals are not to be trusted. You're lucky to be alive."

"Sora hasn't abandoned us," Orihime said, watching her mother out of the corner of her eye as the woman gathered some of their belongings from the main room. Orihime noticed she didn't touch the spinning wheel, only grabbing a few of the more expensive spools and balls of yarn and thread. "He'll come back, and then –"

"We're not staying here over the winter, Orihime. It's too cold, and there's not enough wood. We can work in town." Her mother grabbed an armful of the best cloth Orihime had made on the loom pushed to the wall. It was a small loom, and therefore it took Orihime a long time to make any sizeable bolt of cloth, but her work was precise and lovely. Sadly, few could afford such patterns. Usually she made plainer designs of thick yarn for blankets.

"But we have plenty of wood stacked outside. Sora made sure we had enough for the winter." Orihime knew her brother had made certain they were cared for during his absence; he'd also saw to her pinto bean and honey stash that was currently in the small hole dug into their clay floor. It was her favorite treat and in the winter, she could thaw it by the fire to eat. "I can gather more if –"

"I've sold half the wood to Petr. Now pack up."

Orihime had stood, but now halted as she reached for a bolt of her thickest woven cloth. "You sold our firewood, Mother?"

"Yes. We won't need it."

Orihime watched her mother bustle around, collecting items to pack into her large cloth bag. She unconsciously folded the thick blanket in her arms. "I should take my best work," she said, sorrow loading her voice.

But her mother had moved into the next room already and didn't respond.

* * *

An hour later, the two of them were on their way to the nearest town. Orihime had only been there a few times, mostly with her brother to sell wares or to pick up orders for tailor-made items. Usually only Sora accompanied their mother when she wanted to go; he'd never made his reasons known to Orihime, and she had stopped asking after a few years.

She trudged through the cold underbrush of the mid-morning, always keeping an eye out for wolves.

Or the panther. She smiled at the thought of the blue cat, recalling its soft fur coat, the flash of blue in its eyes. It was a fierce look, and she wouldn't want to see those eyes glint angrily at her, but she did like they way they looked. She lifted her heavy skirts higher, her breath frosting in the chilled air. Snow would come soon.

"I should have brought my best work," she chanced to say. Her mother was still angry with her for fussing over the move, but Orihime still thought her point was germane. "I think the warmer woolens would be best to show prospective employers. Maybe some of the blankets? I could come back tomorrow and get some. Maybe –"

"You won't need to show your weaving talents, Orihime," her mother snapped, glancing back at her quickly. Her hair was darker than her daughter's, but they both shared the same gray-to-violet eyes. It was one of her better features, and one that age hadn't touched too much in her life in the forest. She turned back to the path cutting through the birch and elm trees. Another two miles and they would be in town.

Orihime frowned, hitching up her cloth bag's strap higher onto her shoulder. "I won't? Oh, spinning? Or mending?"

Her mother's tone grew colder. "You can work your fingers raw and bleeding and never make the money you're designed to make." She turned and stopped, giving the girl a sweeping, nearly indifferent appraisal. "You're old enough to please a man and you're built for it. There's more money to be made from that than a hundred sheep of the finest wool."

Orihime's mouth dropped open in shock, disbelief on her face as her mother stared back at her. "You...you want me to be a...whore?"

"It's good money." Her face took on a look that Orihime had seen her mother use on men. It always looked sly to her, but she knew it was her mother's alluring look. "It's a good house. Finest perfumed oils from the isles. Costly clothes of silk from Chine, and bracelets of pure silver and real jade – if you're good." A brisker tone came to the woman. "They'll let you keep some of your gifts from men, Orihime, if you please the right people."

Orihime was speechless at the prospect.

"Come on, we have an appointment with a contact I've made." The woman turned and moved on.

Orihime remained transfixed where she stood.

Realizing she was not being followed, the woman turned and leveled a glare on the girl. "Quickly, Orihime."

Orihime could only shake her head, clutching her sample blankets. "I don't want to do...that."

"You'd turn down good money?"

"But, but we don't need that kind – that much money," Orihime stammered. "We can just keep weaving – _I'll_ keep weaving. I'll spin and take in sewing. But let's not leave."

Her mother laughed, and it sounded like a saw cutting wood to Orihime. "The man from two nights ago, he put a good word in for me – for us – with the second largest brothel in town. You make men happy, and you get paid, daughter. After the first six months, you even get to keep part of your makes."

"No..." Orihime took a step back.

"It's already done." Her mother stood straighter. "I've promised you. Now let's go."

The words seemed to be sharp as a saw, cutting into Orihime's flesh this time, nicking her bones. She shook her head. "I'll not be a whore, Mother."

With a sudden movement, her mother slapped her soundly, leaving a red mark on Orihime's cheek.

Orihime stepped back at the impact, one hand going to her flaming cheek. She shook her head, feeling the tears form in her eyes from the sharp slap and fear that came with it. "No. I'm not a whore."

"You will be soon. Now walk!"

Orihime shook her head, and then turned and ran back the way they'd come.

"Orihime!"

She heard her mother shouting for her, but Orihime ran on, her cheek stinging, the tears shedding down her cheeks feeling like they blistered on the reddened skin from the slap.

"Orihime! Orihime! Come back here!"

There was a long pause of nothing but the sound of tree branches slapping at her shoulders and arms and her frantic footsteps as she tried to flee the very concept her mother suggested.

"Go then! You can freeze and starve! Then you'll be happy to lay for the first man with a bronze coin!"

Orihime ran as fast as she could, not only from the future she was promised to, but from her mother's cruel laugh that seemed to follow her and sink into spine. She ran on, blindly as the tears fell, salting her cheeks.

It took an hour of nearly non-stop, breathless running for her to reach their home, the shack, nestled quietly and modestly in the taller trees. She flung open the door, welcoming the shabby loveliness of the dwelling, and collapsed at the hearth.

* * *

Orihime didn't know how long she slept that day, but it was dark when she awoke. Night came early in the cold months, so she knew it might not be too late.

"But it is too late, Sora," she murmured to herself as she sat up, her back aching from her crooked position at the fireplace base. She took a moment to gather her thoughts and sit up better, grimacing at her kinked posture. She combed her fingers through her hair, picking out a few twigs still caught there from her run home.

Her mother's words haunted back to her. She felt more alone than ever.

She looked around at the empty, still, and very chilly room. For a moment she watched her breath steam in the air in the light of the moon eking through a crack in the wall. She shivered, and then stood up and went about making a fire.

It took a while to coax the kindling into lighting in the hearth, and then she didn't want to leave the slow warmth coming from the kindling. It was a meager blaze, and she decided larger pieces of wood would be better.

Outside at the woodpile near the back of the shack, the moonlight seemed to spotlight the half-stack of wood still there. She sighed. Already Petr, their closest neighbor – and one of the men who wanted to hunt down the blue panther – had collected his loot.

She picked out a few dried logs and shook the excess bark and dirt from them, and then knelt to see the odd shaped prints in the dark dirt. They were deep, without claws, and definitely made by a large cat. Orihime held the wood closer to her chest and put one hand near a print.

"Nearly as big as my hand," she said lowly. She looked around the yard in the dark. There was no cat to be seen, big or small.

She sighed and stood, and then took the wood to the shack.

Within the hour, Orihime had built up a nice fire and warmed the room and dug out a crock of honey-beans Sora had stored for her. It was supposed to be a delicacy for the winter months, the shelled beans in honey, but she couldn't think of anything else to eat at the moment. In fact, she wasn't sure there was anything else to be eaten at all in the shack.

She set the crock near the hearth to warm so she could scoop out the sweet paste, and then looked to the spinning wheel. She'd gladly spend her days at it rather than what her mother had planned for her.

She was about to settle at the hearth and try not to think at all, but a creak of the door made her spin and look there.

For a moment all she saw was the vague outline of the panther, no color, no definition, simply eyes glinting within the silhouette of the large cat. She blinked a few times, stepping back as the fire crackled behind her.

The panther stepped closer, nearly into the doorway, head lowered as it watched both Orihime and the dancing fire.

Of all the thoughts racing through Orihime's mind, fear wasn't ranked as high as it should have been. She smiled timidly at it, still startled to see it. She extended her arm and beckoned with her fingers.

"Hello?" She wanted to kneel and invite the panther in, but knew there was a very real danger in such an action. "Oh, I know, the door doesn't always latch right."

A low growling purr came to the cat as it took another step, the door letting in the cold night air with it.

Orihime could feel her precious warmth escaping out the door. She knelt, smiling more, knowing the cat couldn't tell a smile from a frown. "Come in? I mean, come in."

For a long, cold moment the panther paused, watching her and then watching the flames reach high into the fireplace. Very slowly it took a few steps, and, to Orihime's shock, flicked its tale and shut the door behind it.

"Oh..." She swallowed a yelp. "You're quite a, a clever cat, aren't you?" She didn't really expect it to answer, but she hadn't expected it to close the door, either. She slowly knelt to the hearth, keeping one eye on the cat as it watched her. "S-so, you're looking for a-a warm place to sleep, too?"

She dearly hoped that was the case and not that the cat was seeking a meal. She pulled the crock closer to her without taking her gaze from the cat. "Uh, well, I don't have anything...meaty, but maybe you like beans? With honey?"

The cat sat down, still halfway across the small room from her. If Orihime leaned out as far as her arm would reach, she could have touched it. But she didn't do that.

She braved looking away from the panther and pulled the cork from the top of the crock's wide opening. Inside were red beans with a golden-colored liquid laced around them.

Mostly still frozen, she noted.

"Hmm," she said, sighing, full attention now on the crock's contents. "Well, it's starting to thaw."

She smiled at the cat, who licked its lips with a pink tongue, the purr in its throat now a full purr with no growl. She nodded and reached her hand into the jar, scooping a few finger-fulls of honey-coated beans. "Ooh, some of it's thawing."

She stuck her fingers in her mouth, nodding at the sweet, pasty taste. It was her favorite treat. Sora had introduced her to sweet bean paste when they were in town two autumns ago. They'd gone to see the newest in threads and materials. Orihime had seen her first silks, her first rice-shaped pearls, and sampled her first green tea, all from the Orient. It had been a luxurious trip, and she'd brought back new ideas to try on her own loom.

Nothing she did had been close to silk, but she had strived to make the thinnest threads possible. She'd resorted to doing needlework with them.

"There's no call for such delicate embroidery," her mother had said when she saw Orihime's fine stitching and hummingbird designs.

She was right, Orihime knew; such finery belonged in cities and towns.

But Sora had attempted to duplicate the sweet bean paste Orihime had loved, and since then, he'd made her a crock to store for the winter. This winter, knowing he was leaving, he'd made her three crocks.

Orihime licked the honey off her fingers as she recalled these thoughts, for a moment lost in her own past. She sighed, and then looked quickly to the cat as it moved. For a second she froze, watching it close in on her, head lowered, eyes on her leg she had curled to her side.

She looked down, following the cat's gaze, and saw the few drips of honey on her shin that had drizzled from her fingers as she reminisced. She resisted moving her leg as the cat stopped before her and sniffed the few amber-colored droplets on her skin. She smiled despite her renewed fears, feeling its warm breath on her leg, and then felt it lick the spots.

She nearly giggled but caught her breath, uncertain about the odd contact. It was a mixed touch, the cat's rough tongue against her leg and the soft, warm motions of the lick. She didn't breathe, instead only focusing on the panther's back and shoulders as it licked up the spots of honey, and then moved to the rest of her calf, this time with longer strokes.

It finished her calf, licking its lips, and then looked at her, eye to eye.

For a moment Orihime held that blue gaze, likening it to the deep blue of the harbor waters she'd seen in town with Sora. She smiled, and then reached into the jar. "There's a-a little more thawed." She scooped as much as she could of the soft honey-bean mixture from the crock. She ate part of it, and then held out her fingers to the panther.

This time there was no preliminary sniffing – the cat's mouth opened and Orihime gasped as her whole hand nearly disappeared among the hollow of the cat's teeth. But it didn't bite, merely sucked off every bean and then proceeded to clean her fingers of any honey.

She watched the cat for a moment, and then moved the crock to one side and risked petting the blue fur. "You know," she said as she hesitantly let her hand touch the soft pelt at its shoulder, "sometimes I dream I've had a cat. Not blue, but a gray cat. Sometimes the dream seems so real." She petted the cat's shoulder and then down its side, slowly, not wanting to undue any progress she – they – had made. "And sometimes I have dreams of a man with blue eyes, like yours, with fair hair. He speaks, but I can't understand him. Like a foreign language." She sighed. "And we're going somewhere, but we never get there. I don't know why." She watched the cat lick the back of her hand where there was no honey. "Dreams are like that, I guess."

The fire cut low from a gust of wind outside and both Orihime and the panther looked to the hearth. She looked back at the cat, seeing in the blue depths of its eyes the flickering fire. She looked away, not wanting to challenge the cat with a wrong look, and sighed as her gaze rested on the crock. It would thaw by morning, and they'd have all the honey-beans they wanted.

Thanks to Sora, she thought.

She felt tears gather in her eyes at thoughts of her brother. He'd always looked out for her, more so than even their mother. She sniffed, trying not to let the tears fall, but they were too heavy in her eyes. She didn't look up, her hand still trailing down the cat's shoulder, across its side, ruffling the soft, blue fur covering the powerful muscles beneath.

For a long moment the panther watched those tears settle in her eyes. When the first one started down her cheek, it stopped purring.

Orihime looked up at the lack of rattle from the cat. She sniffed, feeling silly for crying at memories. "I know it's childish to cry. Cats don't cry. No animal..."

She stopped speaking as the cat's face leaned to her, focusing on her face as it licked the tear lacing down her cheek. It only licked the one time, erasing the tear, and leaned back again to watch her.

Orihime blushed, wiping her face. "Oh, yes...uh, tears are salty, not sweet. Not very good to eat, I guess."

For several long moments she rubbed her face clean of any tears, feeling childish, half-expecting the cat to take a large bite out of her shoulder when she least expected it.

But the panther did not bite, nor did it leave, and by the time the room heated to too warm of temperatures, both girl and cat were sleeping at the hearth, honey-beans forgotten.

* * *

Orihime dreamed that night of the man with the blue eyes. Again he spoke in a language she did not understand, and again they never reached their destination. Usually the dream ended when she awoke to her mother calling her name.

This time she woke up two men's voices outside the shack, and a deep growling sound.

She opened her eyes quickly to the morning light.

The panther was on its feet, facing the door, its tail switching testily behind it. Orihime sat up, blinking quickly as she tried to identify the voices.

"...the wood, and we're here for the rest this morning," came Petr's low base. "Who are you?"

The second man's tone was deeper, holding a slight accent. "I was sent by the girl's mother to fetch her. She's inside?"

"No one's home." It was Petr's son's voice.

Orihime frowned at the teen's tone, trying to remember his name.

"Get your wood; I'm here for the girl." It was the second man. "Orihime! Your mother sent me to get you! Come out! Time to leave!"

Orihime scrambled to her feet. The cat had all legs braced on the clay floor, its breath making faint steam puffs in the now-cold room since the fire had died overnight. The hair on its back bristled, teeth bared as it growled at the door.

Orihime moved to stand beside it, but the panther switched its tail, as if to wave her back, flicking against her skirts.

"Orihime!" the man called. "I know you're in there. I saw the smoke earlier! Your mother demands you be brought to town!"

The panther growled louder, an unmistakable sound.

"Orihime?" Petr called, this time with concern. "Are you hurt? I hear something in there with you."

There was another sound, this time one Orihime wasn't sure of. "It's okay," she whispered to the panther, crouching near it. "I think —"

The door suddenly flung opened and there stood two men and a teen boy. As soon as the door opened, the panther sprung. At the same time, Orihime realized the two surprised men outside were armed and had drawn longbows.

The first arrow was in the air as soon as the panther launched, slicing into the cat as it rose. The second arrow zipped past it.

Orihime cried out as she saw the arrow stop at the panther's chest, sinking deep into its body as it completed the pounce. She had taken two more steps just as the cat leaped outside the shack's doorway before she realized she, too, had been struck.

The sharp pain twisted deep into her lung, piercing through her chest. For a startled second, she stared at the feather fletching vibrating from its impact, its shaft sunken in her, the other half protruding from her back.

And then the panther fell to the ground, curling over the arrow that had traveled halfway through its body. An angry roar erupted from its mouth, paws still clawing at Petr lowering his bow, shock on his face.

The other man was looking at Orihime as she crumpled to the cold ground near the panther. "...No...no, girl. Uh, not..."

Orihime heard no more from the men. She could see their mouths move as she felt herself fold to the ground, and then felt the softness of the panther beneath her, his body twitching helplessly. She wanted to speak, but her lung hurt, and she couldn't get enough air for her cry.

Instead she felt herself sag to the panther's side, feeling his heartbeat thumping quickly, but also weakening as his movements stilled. She could hear the rattle of a growl beneath her ear in its soft fur, and for the first time, she could place a name to the man in her dreams.

"Grimmjow," she said through dribbles of bloody froth as her last breaths forced her eyes shut.

Beneath her, the panther sighed heavily.

Orihime felt the light of the morning sun grow cold on her face. "...I remember you..."


	7. Legend

Orihime had never seen anything like it before. The soft, fine material seemed to slip through her fingers. It folded gently over her hand, the supple periwinkle color nearly sheer. She almost blushed, thinking of the inappropriateness of the fabric for any use except one.

"But I'm not to marry yet, Sora," she said, looking up at her brother. "And even so, I'd have to wear two layers – for modesty."

"Being your brother," he said, smiling despite his most recent gift, "I'd say at least three."

She giggled softly, not wanting to alert her mother to the conversation. Marriages and dowries were a sore spot in their modest Macedon household. Caught between Hellenistic and Achaean Leagues – and with the ever-pressing Roman invasion pushing down on them – the small weaving shop they ran in the poor village hanging off the Mediterranean had become known for its finely woven textiles and delicate beadwork. Sora had a hand in that, spending most of the year on a ship to bring Orihime better materials than most shepherds could supply and finely-worked beads from the Middle East.

She always loved his visits home, but they had become just that – visits. He rarely stayed more than a few days. And what he brought was often gone – and for the wrong reasons – too soon.

"Now you keep it away from her and save it – and yourself – for your wedding night, Orihime," he said gently, smiling as he leaned closer to her. "Don't let her sell it out from you. Keep it for your trousseau."

She smiled and nodded. "But I'll never marry, brother; who wants a poor girl for a wife in this place? Everyone here is poor and girls are plentiful. What few rich shepherds still here barter off their best sons to the richest dowries. I'll just weave until I'm old."

Even as she said it, he saw the wistfulness in her eyes. He shook his head and took her arm. They'd been talking on the porch of the stone cottage just inside town; it was a small home, but starting to crumble in the bright sun. The tiny yard that stretched behind the house met the other small yards of their neighbors in a broken-stone courtyard. Their mother hadn't kept up her garden, and all the dyestuffs they grew had gone to seed. They no longer grew their own dye flowers for thread – "It takes too long to tend such flowers," their mother had told him last time he was home. "We have other priorities..."

He knew those priorities; mingling with the wealthier merchants and town elders under the guise of making a good match for Orihime. Sora knew better. He knew their mother would further her own position in the village at the cost of her daughter. It was one of the reasons he'd gone to sea, to ensure his sister a better dowry.

"Don't let her feather her nest with your trousseau," he told Orihime as he escorted her into the house. "This is my gift to you; don't let her have it."

She gave him a playful nudge with her elbow as she collected the mounds of pastel material to her chest, careful not to let it touch the ground. "I've not even been promised to a bridegroom yet, Sora. I'm far from married."

"You're close in age. If there was a sailor or fisherman I knew with a year's salary in keep and without a wife," he said, sighing, "I'd make the introductions myself."

"Everyone here is pooring-out," she said. The interior of the stone house was cooler, and the kitchen-living area was alive with the smells of salmagundi stew – Orihime's specialty. "All the herds and flocks are slowly getting eaten up."

Sora looked to the bubbling reddish-brown broth in the copper pot stuffed with vegetables and smoked fish over the fire pit. Already his stomach was shifting from his sister's culinary _expertise_. "So it's still at large? I thought someone would have hunted it down by now."

Orihime carefully rolled the spider-webby material around her arms to keep it clean. "Oh, no. The blue man-cat beast is still at large." A solemn gravity came to her tone. "It's been raiding the shepherds' folds at night and running the poor lambs to death. Even the older sheep die of fright. And now goats and pigs are missing. It doesn't seem to matter what we do, it isn't enough."

Sora sat at the small table against the wall, absently picking up the yellow squash there he knew Orihime would add to the thick, spicy stew. "That sounds like a lot of feeding for one man-beast. Has anyone seen it lately?"

"The usual rumors." She smiled as she sat across from him, the material bundled in her lap. "I miss you, Sora," she said, sighing as he fingered the squash. "She's gone all the time, in town, making connections for me, she says." She shook her head. "She smells like expensive oils and perfumes when she comes home. She has new bangles every week. But we barely scrape up money for the taxes." She looked to the unfinished needlework she was making for one of the villages' few wealthy women. Her hand went to her hair where a small blue flower was tucked at her ear, holding back her fiery auburn tresses. "I had to hide the last money I made from the sale of a scarf so we can pay the taxes coming due soon."

He watched her fingers toy with the flower, still amused she thought to keep one there. He'd put the first blue wildflower in her hair two years ago before he left for fortunes on the sea. Every visit, she still had a blue flower there. Sometimes they were a bit wilted, and a few times he realized the 'flower' was made of dyed threads Orihime had made into lace and shaped into a flower when the season was out for fresh flowers.

"Someday," he said, leaning across the table to her, taking one of her hands still clutching the bundled material, "I'll bring you a real hair pin, with a blue enamel painted flower. It'll never fade or dry out, and it will never lose its petals, Orihime."

She smiled and let her fingers grip in his hand. "I don't need a hair pin, Sora. Just stay with us. Please?"

His hand grew hard around hers, firm, the pressure reassuring but also promising his eventual departure. "One more trip, Orihime. Then I'll have enough for a proper dowry for you and maybe enough to move us out of here."

Her eyes lit, nearly matching the color of the cotton gauze in her arms. "Out? When?"

He nodded. "When I next return..."

* * *

Sora left that night, just after their mother had returned, and just after the usual argument. Orihime hated to see him leave, away to the sea again.

"Don't frown so," her mother said sharply as Orihime stood at the garden porch, looking at the broken stones in the once-fragrant beds of dyeing plants. "He isn't the only one with news for your future."

Orihime spun around, leery about what her mother could possibly refer to. "My future?"

"You don't think I know he brought you a bolt of cotton gauze?" Her mother laughed, bangles clanking as she crossed her arms, watching Orihime's face register surprise and dismay. "Not even real silk gauze – just the cotton kind. Very poor on his part. I suppose it's the best he can do. Now you," she said, "are worth more, to the right people."

A chill went up Orihime's spine at the thin smile her mother gave her. It was the same smile that she had when she tried to entice Orihime into a more lucrative future, a future Orihime had declined. "To who?"

The older woman smiled more, a greedy glint taking the place of a once liveliness in her eyes. Her light brunette hair was held back in a web-style silver fillet that shone like crystal in the darkening evening. Her mauve cotton dress was cinched at her waist by the most-fashionable braided gold cording Orihime could make, but her figure was past its prime. Her smile and laugh could no longer make men leap to pass her a coin or pay her taxes. Not in this poor village. Not with the once-wealthier ranchers losing livestock on a weekly basis.

"I've arranged your future," her mother said rather casually. "Your patron has agreed to pay the taxes on this place and provide enough...for expenses." An almost dreamy tone came to her voice as she seemed to look past Orihime's shocked expression. "You must be obedient and do as they say. This is an honor, as well as a necessity. It's your call." She focused pointedly on Orihime. "Your duty, daughter. Remember that."

"But...but who?" Orihime felt as if the air wasn't reaching her lungs. Her mother had arranged her marriage? "But what about a dowry?"

"Forget your dowry. You're being accepted as you are." Her mother turned into the archway of the house, seeming to absorb into the lamplight inside that shed out. "Now make your wedding night gown. And be quick. There's no time to lose. This is a once in a lifetime chance to be something worthwhile, Orihime."

"...Yes, Mother." Orihime could only blink, thinking furiously of possible suitors. "Mother, do you mean a wedding _dress_?"

"No. Your wedding night gown, from your cheap gauze."

Orihime frowned, looking after her. She heard a soft knock on the street door to their home and her mother welcome someone inside. She quickly went into the house.

"...ready then," her mother was saying to one of the town elders as Orihime got to the main room where the smells of their scorching spicy supper still lingered.

The man was one Orihime had seen before. He had a kind but tired face. He was once one of the wealthiest ranchers in the town, but now he, like most, were passably existing. He looked to her with a grateful smile, but it was the way his gaze fell over her body that made Orihime step back into the poorer light.

Her mother turned to see her. "Yes, she is going to work on that soon."

The man made a short bow to Orihime, his sparse hair falling around his balding head. His clothes were still clean, but somewhat worn. "We are in your debt, maiden. I hope for the best for...your future."

Orihime frowned at the odd blessing. "Thank you." She looked to her mother. Perhaps she'd been promised in marriage to an outsider, someone not of the village.

* * *

For two days Orihime worked at making her one-piece trousseau. It was odd, a single garment for a trousseau. Usually there was the wedding dress, a ceremonial dinner dress, traveling clothes, and then the eventual nightgown.

But maybe it's not so unusual, she told herself as she fitted the pieces and sewed them on the second day. Everyone had been rendered to meager means since the man-cat beast had reduced the town's herds and flocks by half in the last few years. She sat at the back porch where the light was best and carefully stitched the three layers of nearly transparent cotton gauze into a flowing gown of sheerest lavender-blue. Sora was right; two layers were too transparent, even for a wedding night.

Orihime blushed bright pink at the idea of her wedding night. She knew it wasn't too shocking to meet her future-husband so close to the marriage, but it was still a frightening thought. She knew what the wedding night meant – her mother had made certain she knew those details. She tried not to think of the available men in town.

"Too thick," her mother said from behind her as Orihime held up the gown.

Orihime yelped and stood quickly. She whirled around, pulling the dress close to herself.

"Don't feign that modesty with me," her mother said, putting one hand on her hip, assessing her daughter. "I've seen how the men and boys around here look at you. Even if you're not a virgin, it won't matter."

Orihime felt her cheeks take on another few degrees of heat. "But it _does_ matter..."

"You could be swaddled up like a trussed bird. It won't matter tonight." A chilly laugh followed, and her mother dropped a brocade bag on the step near Orihime's sewing supplies. "Get yourself presentable. You should smell like your rich, sweet oils and perfumes – gifts from the town's best merchants, daughter. Put the gown on and make yourself appealing."

"Now?" Orihime unconsciously crimped the edges of the gown she'd just finished. "So soon? But the ceremony...so soon?"

"Just try it on, daughter. Don't be so frail-minded."

With that, her mother turned back into the house.

It took Orihime a long time to slip into the cotton gauze gown in her room. It fell to her shins, sweeping out from her waist by the folded sash that she'd tied as she'd seen other nightgowns fasten. The light material was like a whisper around her, barely touching, even with the three layers, and still nearly transparent at her breasts and waist where it was more fitted.

She hadn't had time for proper sleeves, using only the natural draping of the gown and some whipping-stitches to edge the arms and collar. She knew the neckline was supposed to be lower, but she hadn't done that; this was _her_ gown, after all. There were no adornments, no beading, no fancy stitching. She hadn't had time for that, not with making it three layers thick. She combed out her hair with the brush Sora had brought back on his first trip abroad. It was made of smooth wood and inset with small bits of pearl and black jade to form a swan design on the back.

She looked around at her small room in the house. It wasn't much, that stone cottage, and nearly identical to everyone else's home nearby, but it was where she'd been raised.

The daughter of her mother's misspent youth, following her brother's birth.

With a little hesitancy, she opened the brocade bag and sniffed a few of the small bottles of scented oils inside. She decided on one that smelled somewhat nutty – sandalwood and saffron – and applied it sparingly to her wrists and neck. She smiled, kind of liking the scent. It was a pricy, heady oil, one that would have been prized by any merchant to sell.

_And one that few in the village could now afford to buy, _she thought. Perhaps it wasn't so much a gift as an excess someone could never hope to profit from.

"Stand up," her mother's voice came from the doorway.

Orihime had flinched at the sound, spilling a few drops of the scented oil on her arm. She quickly rubbed it into her skin and carefully stopped the bottle with a cork and stood up. She smoothed her skirt, feeling her mother's callous stare sweep over her.

The woman nodded, neither affection nor pride in her expression for her daughter.

Orihime swallowed uncomfortably. "Shouldn't I make my wedding dress first?"

In answer, a knock came to the door, and her mother left into the next room. Orihime sighed, nervous and a bit excited at the same time. She'd heard of other girls having rushed weddings, but she guessed at some of the underlying reasons behind those.

"Orihime, come out here," her mother called from the next room.

"I, I'll change –"

"Come out now. This moment."

Orihime didn't like the tone her mother used. She was still wondering if she should hurriedly change or simply peek around the wall when her mother appeared at her door and grabbed her arm.

"Now!" She dragged Orihime into the next room where four men stood. One was the man from a few nights ago, the other three ones men she'd seen when the village held the bi-monthly offerings to repel the cat-beast from the neighboring herds and flocks. She looked to each with confusion, forgetting momentarily her thin clothing. The three men dropped their gazes at her presence.

The first man cleared his throat, somewhat averting his eyes as he spoke to her. "Maid Orihime, we of the village are forever in your debt for this. You know we've tried everything else we know to for these three years, and we cannot continue to lose our livestock."

She barely nodded, looking again to the offering men – the _sacrificers_ some of the other girls who spun and wove in town called them. The stories they shared while spinning and bartering threads were largely exaggerated, Orihime knew, but there was also very real truth to the viciousness of the blue cat-man who preyed on the livestock.

She looked to her mother.

The woman had taken on a faux mortified look. "You know she is my only daughter..."

The first man nodded, bowing slightly. "Yes, and we shall compensate you for your...loss. You both must understand we are in dire need of appeasing the beast. You will be compensated, and Maid Orihime will no doubt understand it is a sacrifice on your part, as well as hers."

Orihime's mind tried to follow the small crumbs of information, but none of it made sense. She slowly shook her head, not liking the few options of sense she could make of the men's presence.

"Come with us."

Those next few minutes were surreal for Orihime. She was vaguely aware of her mother nodding and speaking, of the first man handing her mother a large embroidered bag that clinked with coins, and then the three men took her from the house.

The bright sunlight of the day seemed to mock her confusion. The main street of the village was lined with the townsfolk, all standing with their backs to her in the street, but all turning their heads as she passed with the three sacrificers. She heard the murmurs as they walked, the softly spoken "So sorry", "Thank you", and "We'll remember you always" as she passed.

Her mother stayed behind, already opening the bag of coins in her hands as Orihime was led away with the four men.

Orihime didn't look back at her.

She felt as if her feet weren't moving, but she was still steadily propelling through town, and then out it. Even without thinking about it, she knew the way. It was where the sacrificers took the animals offered to the cat-beast; it was done every other month in an attempt to keep the man-cat away from the flocks and herds. Some people argued that it would only encourage the beast to stay around, as it had found a convenient food supply. Some said that had already happened, and the dwindling livestock proved it. Others said the offerings should be set out more often so as not to give the beast a chance to get hungry and attack their animals. And still others said it was neither cat nor man but something supernatural with an insatiable appetite and therefore it wouldn't matter how often they offered to it, or what they offered.

It was that last thought that made Orihime feel weak in her legs, as if she were going to pass out.

"I can't, can't do this..." she said, now pulling from the two men on either side of her. Their grips on her arms tightened. "But I can't. I'm supposed to be married!"

She pleaded on as they left the village behind and headed into the olive groves where the tall boulders rose into the rocky caves that lined that coast of the sea. The summer foliage was thick, seeming to swallow them into the lush greenery. The beauty of the ferns and trees was lost on Orihime as the men forced her up the rocky terrain to what she knew was Sacrifice Rock.

She'd never seen it, but the stories passed around the washer-woman and spinning wheel mills had described it well. There were no bloody footprints on the stony path from the hundreds of animals already offered to the cat-beast, but Orihime looked for them anyway. There were just rocks and twigs.

"Please, don't," she whimpered as the men tugged her up the sloping rocky side. "Please, we, we don't give it..." she sniffed, beginning to sob, "...not people. Just, just lambs, and pigs and, and sheep..."

"We're very grateful to you, Maid Orihime," the first man said, this time his tone sorrowful as he put a hand to her shoulder, easing her up the path ahead of him.

She turned to look at him as the other men pulled her along. Their hold wasn't bruising, but neither did it relax. "But...I'm not supposed to do this. You're not supposed to use..."

"Your mother should have told you," he said, troubled that she was still dumb to the offering. "I know it is a hard thing for a mother to do, but you'll always be in our memories, and our hearts. And perhaps, maid, you'll please him. It's possible he's more man than cat..."

Orihime involuntarily shuddered so hard the men nearly lost their grip on her. "Take me back, or let me run away. He," her words broke and her throat choked her and she nearly swallowed her tongue as she saw the tall rock ahead, "he can hunt me down. Don't tie me up! At least give me a chance to run!"

But it was no use. Within moments, Orihime found herself at the rock, with one of the three men tying her wrists with the rope to the metal ring bolted to the stone face. Her arms were lifted, her wrists dangling just above her eyelevel so she couldn't hope to untie the tight knots in the rope. She felt faint as the man tested her tether to make sure it was fast. On the stone face she could see scratches and claw marks, desperate scrapes from horned animals and the large panther-man's claws.

The four men stepped back and looked at each with a mixture of guilt and shame. Never had they brought a human to the rock.

She looked to each of their faces, but all she could see was her mother's – giving her away – all the while acting as if she was marrying her off. _"I've arranged your future... You must be obedient and do as they say. This is an honor, as well as a necessity. It's your call...Your duty, daughter. Remember that."_

She felt fainter, but blinked a few times to clear her mother's face from her mind.

The men bowed low and backed away from her, murmuring their respects and gratitude.

"...a once in a lifetime chance to be something worthwhile," Orihime recalled aloud, numbly watching them retreat. "No... Don't leave me here..."

She knew they would. She'd already been discarded as a loss to the village; she should have realized that when the townsfolk had turned their backs to her, as if unable to face their own shame in someone else's decision.

Her eyes closed as the men left back into the olive trees and stony slope, leaving her tied alone to the rock in the bouldered clearing that offered no escape. Her mind already begun the calculating – how many sheep, goats, pigs, and the occasional calf that had been offered. Enough, she knew, to satisfactorily feed a man or panther. That's what it was – a large, wild cat-man.

It was enough to feed, but if the cat-beast was killing simply to slaughter, then there would never be enough offered.

Her mind grew cold. There was never any rumor of the beast killing a person from the village. _Why would they offer one now?_ she wondered.

The hot sun seemed to magnify on her face, as if to bake her against the rock at her side. Her arms were heavy, straining and beginning to ache. She opened her eyes, looking down at the claw and horn marks etched into the stone face. She made herself glance around. She saw no bones from previous offerings.

She wasn't sure how long she was there looking around, waiting for the future her mother had arranged, feeling the sun slip across the rock as her arms grew numb and lethargic. She sensed more than heard the low growl at first, something that sounded like a street cat's rumbling purr, but louder.

She twisted around, trying to see the outlines of the boulders better. The olive trees below the slope blocked any sign of the village. The sun had begun to sink, and the triple-layers of cotton gauze were beginning to show their thinness. She shivered from the low growl and then held her breath as it got louder, now a full, throaty growl.

She turned again to see behind her. At the upper boulders the rock dissolved into the mountainous caves, and on one ledge was another figure.

He crouched, the shape of a man, slightly bluish in the late day's light, a long tail switching.

Orihime couldn't see him with any definition, but enough to know he was no panther and more than a man. She swallowed, her throat dry from the hours of nothing, and from fear. For a long moment he didn't move, tail moving slower now.

She knew he was looking at her, watching as she barely breathed during that time, but before she could begin to cry anew, he leapt from the ledge.

She flinched as he landed in the clearing, watching her as steadily as she him. The growling subsided, and he walked toward her, upright, his blue color more definite in the better lighting.

Orihime pressed her back to the rock behind her, pulling futilely at her tied wrists, feeling her life ending too soon. She shook her head, unable to speak as he approached. He was neither cat nor man, not entirely, but his strong build was clearly man. Rather than nearly hairless skin, he was covered head to clawed-foot with low, bluish fur, like a cat's pelt, and his hair was longer than any man's hair Orihime had ever seen. It was long, untrimmed, hanging at his back in a deeper blue mane.

But it was his eyes that held her nearly as speechless as the sheer fright of her situation. His eyes were brilliant blue, with no squareness like a cat's at all. She cringed as he stopped before her, her gaze locked on his. He looked her over quickly, then more slowly, unblinking, watching her wrists pull at her binds.

He leaned down closer, sniffing her bare shoulder as she hugged herself to the rock. She watched soundlessly as he smelled her skin, moving to her neck, inhaling deeply as she trembled.

She swallowed painfully, her throat tight and dry. "You're not...a cat," she squeaked out.

His face snapped to hers, watching her try to shrink further away.

And then with a quick strike of one hand's claws, he sliced the ropes from the rock over her head. Orihime's arms fell heavily, but not before he bent and slung her over his shoulder. With one fluid movement, he leaped back into the rocky shadows.


	8. Offering

Orihime nearly forgot to breathe over those next ten minutes. She had a bumpy view of her ride, of the cat-man's legs and tail as he ran with her through the trees and up the rocky incline of the mountain.

She had to breathe after a while, gasping, too afraid to do anything except clutch the short, blue fur at his back, alternately squeezing her eyes shut and trying to focus on the vegetation rushing by them.

Maybe it was the blood sinking to her head as she was draped upside-down over his shoulder or maybe it was fear alone, but she didn't scream. She knew they were climbing higher into the mountain's rocky side, but it wasn't until he made a sudden veer to one side that she realized they'd reached a ledge. No sooner had they topped that and she saw gray stone beneath his feet than they entered a crevice in the slope.

She lifted up as far as she could to see where they'd fled from, but his arm was over her back and his hand pushed her neck lower.

Darkness and the cooler interior of a cave fell over them, and the man-cat's pace slowed. Orihime dared to try to catch her breath, watching the long tail switch as it trailed them as they wound their way through a narrower passage in the coolness of the cave.

She took a deep breath, hoping to summon the nerve to speak, but instead remained silent as he made a sudden leap to a higher ledge within the cave. Blackness engulfed her vision, and she wasn't sure she'd closed her eyes or if they'd entered a lightless area. Far away she heard water dripping. It was the only sound, that and the stealthy pad of his steps. And her own heart pounding in her chest.

She wondered if he could feel it at his shoulder. A misdirected spurt of curiosity made her extend one arm as far as her tethered hands would allow over his back, feeling for his heartbeat. After the run, she expected a deep thumping beneath her palm, but there was only a steady pound at his back. She sheepishly pulled her hand higher, blushing in her already pink-faced position.

They made a sharp turn and the cavernous chamber grew brighter. She had a stunted view of gray stone walls as he stopped and set her on her feet.

She hobbled back from fright before him, unsteady, and he grabbed her tied wrists before she could fall over backwards.

She looked far up at him in the indirect light of the cave and then glanced quickly around at her surroundings. It was a chamber within the mountain caves, gray and slate, with a mostly even floor. Patches of light splayed on the floor, and her gaze went past him up to the ceiling. From several spots she couldn't see in the sloping ceiling came trails of light, late afternoon sunlight that found its way through obscure slits in the cave's exterior, allowing the chamber to be lit.

He dropped her wrists and moved around her, walking a small circle in the chamber that was half as big as her home in the village. She turned to watch him, licking her dry lips that were parched from waiting at the sacrificial tether.

When he stopped before her, Orihime wasn't sure if she should introduce herself or not. Before she could decide, he put one large hand on her head and pushed her backward.

The calves of her legs met a raised surface and she sat down with a slight bounce, squeaking just a bit. He stepped back and she hastily looked to her seat. It was a bed, for all appearances, a raised part of the stone floor that was nearly shin-height and level, and was covered with thick animal hides. She looked back to him.

He stood a few feet away in one of the muted patches of light, evaluating her in the stray sunrays. His gaze fell over her hair, her face, the thin material at her shoulders and to the heaviness of her chest. "So they've decided to appeal to me as a man rather than a cat-beast, is that it?"

"Oh..." She blinked quickly, taken aback. "You, you...can...?"

"Speak?"

She nodded slowly. "...Yes."

He stepped to one side, watching her as she turned her head to follow him, seeing more of the light catch in her tumbled, auburn hair. "What are you?"

She opened her mouth, but only shook her head.

Annoyance lent his tone. "An offering like the others?" Some of the fangs showed when he spoke more harshly. "Or bait? Are you a trap?"

"Oh, no. No, I'm not a trap," she said hurriedly, her tied hands clutched to her thin nightgown. "It's not even time for offering."

"No. It's not. Every other full moon," he said, nodding. "But that's not tonight. This isn't a month for an offering, so I think that makes you a trap."

She shook her head more now, biting her lip as he stepped closer. "I don't think so. They didn't tell me –"

"What did you do to become the offering this time?" he asked, stopping at the bedside, watching her lean away to look up at him. "Are you a criminal? Is this your sentence?"

"No. I, I don't know why...me." Memories of the sack of money in her mother's hands answered her _why_, but Orihime tried not to think about that.

He flicked a quick look to the entry of the chamber. Out it was only darkness, and Orihime could see and hear nothing from it. In fact, the only sound she heard was the trickle of water from somewhere.

He looked back to her. "What do you do?"

"Do?" She saw his eyes go to her hands as she let them lower to her lap. "Oh, I, I weave and sew. Garments. Uh, to..." She decidedly did not look at his torso, blushing despite _not_ seeing that he was clothed in nothing but the short, bluish fur. "Clothing to wear."

The modest averting of her gaze didn't reach him. He nodded to her gown. "Did you weave that?"

She shook her head, looking back to his face. "Oh, no."

His gaze moved slowly over the collar of thin material where it met her skin, watching it fold as she moved uncomfortably. He sat down beside her. "Did you sew that?"

She nodded more hesitantly, nearly holding her breath as he let one leg rest against her knee.

"I can see right through it."

She felt the trembling in her nerves renew. "I, I usually don't sew things like this...so thin. I don't, I don't wear them..." She swallowed as his hand – not a paw, she noted – moved to her hair and swept a few strands from where it lay over her shoulder.

"They told you to?"

Even in the poor light she could see the blue of his eyes. "Yes."

His attention shot from her hair to her face. "For me?"

She didn't want to answer, but was too afraid not to. "...Yes."

He leaned closer, moving her hair from her face to study her closely. One finger's claw pricked into her scalp near her ear, but as soon as it did, he withdrew it. She stifled the wince, returning his stare. He pushed her hair to her shoulder, gently this time, taking a long moment to let the soft tresses fall through his fingers, seeming to be almost mesmerized by the touch.

She tried to hold as still as she could, even as he leaned closer and dropped her hair, putting both arms around hers, pinning her to him. She caught most of the outcry as one arm braced her to his chest as he let the other hand slide down her back, moving from side to side, curving over her hips, almost searchingly. She kept her flinching to a minimum, focusing on his shoulder eyelevel to her, feeling the soft short fur at her forehead as his hand explored her back. She held her breath as the hand roamed up her spine.

"You're shaking," he said.

She didn't nod, concentrating on his hand moving inch by inch down her spine now.

"Why? You think I'm going to devour you?"

She exhaled a trembling breath. "I don't know. You...you ate the others."

"Lamb and swine," he said, his hand pausing as it finished her spine and rested at the doeskin throw behind her. "Whatever they bring and tie up."

She could feel the deep base of his voice in her forehead against his shoulder.

"They've never brought a girl before." His hand moved under her gown and slid up to her bare back.

Orihime caught her breath and tried to push against him with her bound hands. "Wait...wait –"

"You think I'd eat a girl?" His embrace on her tightened as she squirmed, his hand on her back rubbing curiously down her spine, across the small of her back, and then lower. "You said yourself I'm not a cat."

She whimpered, straining to push against him, still conscious that the broad hand at her back wasn't scratching or actually hurting her. "You're not..."

His hand found the drawstring of her pantalets that served as her only underclothing. She shook her head as his hand slid beneath and paused there, feeling the end of her spine and then to either side of her derrière.

"Please don't –"

"You have no tail?" He let her ease away, still cradling her with the arm as his other hand moved higher on her back. There was a glint in his eyes now evident even in the scattered light of the chamber.

She shook her head, watching the flash in his eyes.

A few seconds passed as he estimated her honesty.

"Isn't that what you are?" His hand moved to her arm, sliding up it slowly as his other arm remained beneath her gown, around her waist. "What did they do?" He searched her arm as his hand slid up it and then went to her shoulder and neck. He turned her face at her chin, leaning closely to see her throat. "Did they shave the coat from you? Make you nearly hairless to look like a girl? A woman? Is that what they brought me?"

Orihime's head was tilted up, but she watched him study her throat, her hands on his chest no longer pushing him away. She shook her head as much as she could. "I don't understand."

This time his gaze hardened on her despite the appeal in the violet depths of her eyes as he let her chin lower. Part of that suspicion was what had developed of his nature, but part now too because of the softening affect her fear had on him. "You're not a cat. Ever?"

She could only blink in confusion. "A cat? Have I...?"

"Have you ever been a cat, girl?" His arm tightened around her until she stiffened more in his embrace. "Did they manipulate you into this appearance of a girl for me?"

She shook her head and let herself sigh because she couldn't continue to hold her breath. The faint blue hair on his face was short, barely perceptible, but the long mane of darker blue was more like a horse's than panther's, she decided. He spoke well, even with the longer fangs she had glimpsed when he did speak, and she never would have guessed they were the words from a man-cat. She tried to relax her hands, still bound, at his chest, ignoring his proximity and lack of clothing. "I've never been a cat. I'm just a girl. No one explained anything to me about this, this offering."

He slowly released her, watching her sigh and withdraw slightly as his hand left her bare back. His gaze went to the transparent material covering her chest, then dropped to her waist and her knees that she'd drawn up onto the bed during her agitation.

He stood up and watched her recoil further away on the hides. "Then you must be bait. I figured that's what you were when I saw them tie you to the rock."

She shook her head, pulling her gown skirt over her knees as he appraised her. "They told me nothing of –"

"Stay here." He turned and crossed the chamber. "If you leave, you'll get lost in the tunnels. Stay here and sleep until I get back."

Orihime opened her mouth to protest, but he was already through the doorway and away in the dark of the cave, leaving only the sound of trickling water for company. For a moment she didn't move, listening, hearing only the water, watching the splotches of light move slowly through the stone chamber as the day headed into early evening.

She scooted back to the wall behind her and pulled her knees to her chest, eyes on the dark entryway, ears trying to detect any footfalls of his return. Her spine still imagined his hand on her, the slow crawl of fingers as he searched for a cat tail and found none.

And, she knew, leaving him with the impression that she was not a girl-cat made into a girl, but bait in a trap.


	9. Frozen Hell

Orihime wasn't sure how long she slept or even when she fell asleep, but the faint smell of smoke awoke her later. At first she slowly opened her eyes, realizing she was laying on the platform of stone that served as a bed, the doeskin bundled to her waist in a tight clutch. For a moment it took the events from the night before a few seconds to readjust as they rushed back to her.

The cave was a little brighter now, the filmy moonlight shedding at one far wall in a narrow slit of light. Most of the light came from a small fire nearer to another wall. A butchered animal, something that looked like part of a lamb, was roasting over the spit there, smelling delicious to Orihime's hungry nose. Around the charred circle of firewood and ash were a two clay bowls and a jug.

Orihime's memories sharpened on her new environment at the sight of the items. She glanced to the entryway, seeing nothing but the black of void, and then up at the few slots of light that let the early morning's milky light in.

She sighed in relief at not seeing the man-cat, until a slight movement by her feet made her gaze go there. He sat against the wall, only inches from her on the hide-covered bed, watching her wake.

Her feet recoiled, but not quickly enough. He grabbed one of her ankles, a firm yet not quite bruising hold that only slid her a few inches down to him as she tried to tug her bare foot away. She pulled herself up and leaned back to the wall behind her, half sitting as her leg tensed in his hold.

"I-I didn't know you were here," she stuttered, trying to settle against the wall without full use of her leg.

His hand brought her ankle to his knee crooked over the bed, watching her pull her collar as high as it would go over her chest. "It's morning." His thumb moved over her ankle and to her instep. "You have small feet."

"Oh?" She breathed slowly, letting her foot rest on his leg, as she really had no choice. "Oh, well, I guess...maybe." The light was better in the cavern room as morning stretched on and his lack of clothing was more evident. She tried to keep her attention from straying past her foot on his knee. "You cook your food?"

He chuckled, allowing a tolerant nod as his eyes followed her ankle up to her shin where the gauze skirt lay. "You think I just rip up the animals? Tear them to shreds with my teeth?"

She instinctively looked to his mouth as he said it. She had no doubt he could, but the smell of roasting lamb seemed much more civilized than a wild cat-man. "I didn't know... I thought you were really a cat-beast. I think all of the villagers did. Do."

He shook his head, letting his hand leave her ankle and glide up the calf of her leg, fingers nearly encircling her entire knee when they reached the skirt. Orihime couldn't resist shifting slightly away from him. He sent her a cross look that was magnified by one side of his upper lip wrinkling, and she let her leg remain in his grip.

"No one watched for you," he said, fingers moving over the skin of her knee, but eyes on her timid expression. "They really left you there?"

She nodded. "Yes."

He moved onto the bed beside her, nearly pinning her to the stone wall without even touching her further. She pressed her back to the hard, cool surface, trying not to recoil, but unable not to.

He braced one knee at her hip, the other crossing her legs, trapping her with the dress skirt. She shook her head, pulling the doeskin to her neck, but his hand closed over hers.

"Why are you hiding from me?" he asked.

She swallowed, fearing his grip would crush her fingers in an annoyed clench. "I, uh, I...I was unprepared."

He lowered her hand with the doeskin to her lap between them, seeing her gaze drop and flick to his chest briefly before rising again to his face. "You're old enough to be a bride, aren't you?"

She nodded.

"I thought so." He moved her collar to one side, fingers slow on her skin as his eyes followed the thin material. He pulled the drawstring that cinched her gown closed, seeing her quickly catch her breath. He ignored her still bound, fidgeting hands in her lap, intent on the pale skin beneath the gauze.

Orihime shifted, but his knee on her skirt locked any real movement. Her gaze went to his hand at the drawstring, and then to his face as he pushed the material to her shoulder.

He leaned closer, smelling the curve of her shoulder, detecting the sandalwood she'd used and spilled on her arm, and then lifted that arm. He pushed up her sleeve, which undid his progress at her collar.

Orihime couldn't help but smile as he sniffed her arm, inch by inch, up to her elbow and then as far as the billowy sleeve would allow. She giggled before she could stop herself.

He glanced to her quickly. "I like how you smell."

"Oh, well...you do?"

He nodded and let her sleeve drop and pushed her collar back over her shoulder and took a longer movement to inhale the scent of her skin at her neck. She wasn't giggling anymore, but there was a different sensation of his breath on her skin, something that wasn't quite a touch, but tangible on another sensory level. He sat back, appraising the disarray of her hair from her sleep and the flush of agitation on her cheeks.

"Why are you reluctant to let me near you?" He leaned one hand to the stone wall beside her head, hovering close enough to smell the almond scent of the fragrant oil she wore. "I haven't hurt you."

"B-Because...everyone in the village is afraid of you." It wasn't the entire reason, Orihime knew, but she wasn't about to reply with her worst fears. Not yet.

He nodded, letting one hand go to her hair and pull some of the tangled waves over her collar, almost petting them as they lay at her breast. "Then we'll eat." With a quick movement, he sliced through the rope at her wrists with a few talons and whisked the binds from her. "Are you hungry?"

He was off the stone bed and crossing the floor to the small fire before Orihime could even respond. She blinked a few times, forgetting to be embarrassed at his naked rear side as he squatted at the fire.

"Come on. It's done."

"O-Okay." She rubbed her wrists for a few seconds, and then scooted off the bed and stood, taking a moment to straighten her gown and run a few fingers through her hair. She looked up from her make-do preening to see him watching her, turned so that crouching she only saw the agile lines of his body. He was a man, as much a man as nearly any that she'd seen, and except for the low fur and tail and mane, she doubted he'd cast a shadow unlike most men.

Except he had a more muscular build than most men Orihime knew. She blushed anew at that thought as she met him, keeping out of arm's reach, but doing her best to appear congenial. She knelt and watched the flames lick at the roasted lamb quarters, blaming the heat in her cheeks on the fire and encroaching daylight from overhead.

"It doesn't look uncomfortable on you," he said as he broke off a whole leg joint and set it in one of the nearby bowls. "So I assume your discomfort is me."

She glanced down to her gown when she figured out what he meant. She looked up to see the bowl extended to her, one leg bone sticking out. "Thank you," she murmured, taking the enormous portion of breakfast. "Uh, yes, this isn't exactly a gown I'd where...anywhere."

He twisted off a leg of meat for himself and sat down with it. He saw the blush flush rosé on her cheeks as she watched his movements. Against his usual routine, he grabbed the second bowl and set it in his lap.

Orihime found herself looking and quickly dropped her attention to her own bowl, deciding he was going to need a much bigger bowl to hide what he was attempting to.

"What's your name?" he asked between bites.

"Oh! Yes, Orihime." Her head snapped up and she made a half-bow, averting her gaze back to her bowl. "And, what may I call you? Do you have a name?" She regretted the words as she said them, and was eager to add, "Of course you have a name, right? I mean, what –?"

"Grimmjow," he said, swallowing a mouthful of meat. He shook his head, attention on the leg bone in his hand. "I can't even remember the last time I've said that."

She stopped chewing, seeing something different cloud his face. "Oh, you don't...well, you don't have much chance to tell anyone."

He stripped the meat from one end of the bone with his teeth, not looking to her. "No one asks."

She ate for a few moments, letting the words sink in to her. The slits of light from the outside world were moving along the cave walls, allowing in more light. It made her conscious of her scant clothing, and she found herself holding the bowl closer and higher up on her chest.

Grimmjow noticed it, too. "You don't like wearing that?"

"Not in the light." It wasn't what Orihime had meant to say. "I mean, it's too transparent in the daylight."

He reached across the fire that was beginning to dwindle and grabbed the jug and set it near her knee. He saw the flinch from him she couldn't resist, but he also saw the effort she made in stopping the slight reaction.

She pushed her hair from her face, reminding herself she had been given to him; there was no reason to expect he wouldn't take anything he wanted. She was in the middle of that thought when her fingers paused at her temple and she realized her flower was gone.

She spun from her kneeling position to look to the bed. There was no sign of the small flowers she'd worn in her hair before she'd left her home for the last time. _Lost in all the activity at the Sacrifice Rock,_ she thought, gaze dropping to the half-eaten portion of lamb. She sighed and then looked up to see Grimmjow watching her intently.

"You want more?" he asked.

She shook her head until she realized it only agitated her precarious hiding behind the bowl held to her chest. "No, thank you." She savored the bite still in her mouth, debating to say anything of her observation. She looked to the lamb over the low fire, and then to Grimmjow, trying to keep any judgment from her face.

He saw it anyway. "What are you thinking?"

She shook her head, swallowing the bite. "It's very good. Very tender and succulent."

He grinned a little. "And the wrong time of year to be so young. That's what you're really thinking, isn't it?"

She looked to the fire and then the tasty lamb meat in her bowl. "Well, all the lambs are grown now and much older than this."

"You think I stole it. That's what you villagers always think." He tossed a bone into the bowl and drew up one knee to rest his arm on it.

"I know they offer animals every other month." She knew it wasn't an answer or explanation, but she didn't know what else to say.

"But it's still too young to be stolen or offered at this time of year."

She looked to him and nodded slowly. "It isn't possible."

"'Course it is. You're eating it, aren't you?"

She bit her lower lip, nodding.

He watched the bowl lower as she contemplated the meal. "All these villages are the same...Orihime."

She felt a small compulsion go through her when he said her name; maybe it was the way it sounded through his fangs, or the echo against the stone walls around them, but she liked it. She smiled a little despite it being the wrong moment to.

Grimmjow didn't understand why she smiled, but it was a nice smile, and he felt it was something he wanted to get used to. She let the bowl ease to her lap, attention on him as he continued. "They learn of a creature, a monster that is neither man nor cat, living nearby and they want to either hunt it down or blame every suspicious happening on it." He shrugged, tossing the last picked clean bone into the bowl and reaching for another section of the roasted lamb on the spit. "It's natural."

"You've been hunted before?"

"Not here," he said, breaking the upper section of leg bone in half and leaning over to set the more tender part of meat in her bowl. He sat back and took a big bite of the remaining portion he held. "Other villages."

She picked a strip of meat off the new bone he'd given her. "So, you haven't always been here?"

"A few years. But all you villages are the same."

She frowned, glancing to the jug. She saw no cups, so she set her bowl down and took a moment to take an ungainly drink straight from the large receptacle.

Grimmjow was amused at the spectacle, watching her swallow the unexpectedly voluminous drink as the jug's wide mouth literally dumped too much water into his new companion. If had never occurred to him to need cups before.

Orihime set the jug down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, feeling sloppy, looking sheepishly to him. "Excuse me."

He shook his head, grinning.

"How do you get these things?" Before he could misunderstand, she continued. "We always offer animals, live animals, but you have bowls and things."

He glanced around at the few pieces of pottery, chewing through the lamb. "Since you're here to stay, I'll show you."

He swallowed the last big bite of meat and stood. Orihime set her bowl down just as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Come on."

He led her through the entryway into the dark void of tunnels lacing the cave, his grip tight on her arm as she was enveloped blindly into the inkiness. Around her she could hear water trickling, sometimes close and sometimes farther away, but she could see none of it. Her bare feet followed him as he led, the stone of tunnel floor chilly and growing colder as they wove deeper and lower into the mountain.

"Where are we going?" she finally asked after trailing him without being able to see anything for several long moments.

"Your village is one of the more generous ones. They offer enough to feed a clan of bears." He pulled her along behind him, not too quickly, but at a quick enough pace that she had no time to think about her steps.

"A few animals every other month. I know we've been offering more the past half year, but..." Her voice stilled in the echoing depths of the stone tunnels. "We're a poor village...Grimmjow. We need what flocks and herds we have."

"Then you should build fences or put up watches to keep the wolves out."

Her wrist tensed in his hold. "Wolves? But everyone thinks it's you, taking animals and slaughtering."

"I know. Every village does." He sighed, but she could only hear the expression in the blackness.

Her voice grew timid. "Have other villages offered sacrifices before? To you?"

"Every one of them." He chuckled dryly. "Villagers are odd; they chase away wolves but offer live animals to something they cannot identify as a cat or man. Superstition is the same everywhere, Orihime."

"But...it's not you? You don't raid the flocks or herds?"

He sighed again, pulling her along over an uneven part of the tunnel pathway as they made their way lower and deeper into the mountain depths. "I don't have to. I just have to be seen. That's enough. You villagers want to think it's that easy; appease some odd creature rather than think it's just the wild dogs. Wolves can learn that sort of superstition. They raid at night and remain unseen. Some places, when the villages decide to offer up animals to keep me out of the flocks, the wolves will lie in wait at the offering place. They do here." He laughed. "'Course wolves can't figure out every other month, but they show up at night enough at the rock, looking for an easy meal that's been tied up."

Orihime slowed as she listened, nearly halting on the cold stone pathway. "So it hasn't been you at all?"

He stopped, turning to look at her in the dark. She was looking blindly in his direction, her eyes unfocused in the black that was too thick for her. He watched her gaze search for him, saw her blink and felt her hand rest on his forearm as his grip on her wrist changed. "No. But why shouldn't I take advantage of a village's superstitions?"

She shook her head, tilting her head up at his voice. "So then the wolves keep killing?"

"Your village men should be setting up archers to take down the wolves, not tying up animals to bait the wolves in and keep them coming back." Her arm trembled in his hand and he realized she was cold. She folded one arm over her chest, shivering in the much colder air of the deeper tunnels. "Instead they offer you. I've been to three villages and they're all the same – superstitious. But none of them offered me a girl."

Now her head drooped some, her gaze flicking down to the floor she could not see. "They were desperate for you to stop killing the animals."

He nodded, bending to see her face better. "Then they should kill the wolves, Orihime."

She nodded, flinching a bit at the nearness of his tone. "You could talk to them."

"Talk to them?" He shook his head. "You know I couldn't get anywhere near your village. Not as I am."

A softness lent her voice, her eyes raising to him despite knowing she couldn't see him. "Have you ever lived among people?" She frowned slightly. "Have you always been this way?"

He knew he should be angry at her for posing such questions, and it _was_ a sore spot with him, but at that moment her voice was soft and low, like music, like the melodies he heard from the village on some occasions. Her voice carried off the walls in the tunnel, unthreatening and gentle. He looked to her still tousled hair and the faint tremble of her lips in the cold air. "We'll do this another time. You're cold."

"I didn't mean –"

"Stay here," he said, pushing her to the wall behind her.

"I'm sorry. I –"

"Don't move."

Orihime didn't move. His voice had changed, sounding as if he was walking away. She kept her back to the wall, blind and cold in the stony darkness. Her feet were beginning to ache with the cold and her thin gown let in every frigid touch of air. She put one hand behind her on the wall, feeling its iciness as her feet twitched together in an effort to jeep warm.

Maybe she'd made him mad, asked the wrong question. "I shouldn't have asked how long..." she mumbled to herself. Her breath seemed to thicken when she exhaled, and she wondered if it was steaming in the dark. "Grimmjow?"

There was no sound, not even the sound of trickling water now.

"Grimmjow?" The answering silence made her heart quicken. "I'm, I'm sorry if I said the wrong thing. I didn't mean to."

There was a muffled sound, and then footsteps on the cold stone pathway, and then he took her arm. She smiled in the dark, never happier to have the warm contact of another being, even one layered in fur.

"Let's go back. I'll show you the caves later."

She sighed in relief, eagerly following him now as they took the trail that ascended slowly back the way they'd come. "It was so cold."

"You people offer too much," he said, his hand welcome and warm on her wrist. "It's cold enough to freeze in the lower caves."

She wished she could see him. "Freeze? You freeze the excess?"

"I can't eat it all." He chuckled. "We can have lamb out of season, Orihime."

There was something contenting about the _we_ when he said it. She smiled more, nodding, following him blindly still, but now with a sense of belonging.

Something, she realized, that had been lacking in her own home in the village since Sora had been absent.

It wasn't until they were back at the main cave chamber where the light of the upper crevices shed in sunlight that Orihime saw that Grimmjow carried something in his other arm.

"I have to see about a few things," he said, releasing her arm when they got to the center of the room where the biggest patch of sunlight spotted the floor. "Take what you want from here."

Orihime was still concentrating on her slowly warming feet on the slate floor when Grimmjow dropped a heap of clothing. It made a large mound of colored material in the midmorning sunlight sneaking into the cave chamber.

She marveled at what she knew to be a range of styles and patterns, her eye for fabrics and dyes proven from her work in weaving. "This is...so much, Grimmjow." She knelt and picked up the closest piece of clothing, a brightly dyed frock she knew was from the oriental continent. She looked up at him. "How did you get this? It's not from our village."

He had to grin at her delight in the bundle of assorted cloth, watching her pull the patterned dress to herself, nearly cradling it. "Shipwrecks. The back of this mountain butts up to the shore. Wreckage washes up, some of it right into the lower caves underwater." He nodded to the loudest trickle of water that ran off the wall slope and into a shallow basin before draining out of sight against the wall. "Fresh water comes from the mountaintop and gets in; but there are lower caves, too."

She folded the frock to her chest, feeling the softness against her throat. "I can wear this?"

He watched the colorfully-patterned material seem to pale in beauty next to her, and more than ever he felt the fur on his skin, felt the tail weight his back. He turned and walked to the entryway, the familiar anger welling in him that had driven him from his own past. "Wear whatever you want of it, Orihime. It's all yours."

"Thank you, Grimmjow."

He wanted to turn and look back at her, but it would be one more chance for her to see him as he was, neither cat nor man; a beast. He kept walking. "I'll be back."

"Soon?"

To him, it seemed that there was hope in her tone.

He nodded as he stepped back into the darkness of the cave passages. "Soon."


	10. Hollow Mountain

It was the same dream that Orihime had had for years. It was always about running in an endlessly sandy night. She was surrounded by desert and the night fell heavily on her. She was always alone, but from somewhere out of sight behind her, a man's voice told her to run. She knew dreams were just silly mind-wanderings, but this one seemed more, realistic and yet impossible.

"_Get going_," the unseen man's voice always told her. "_Don't stop. Now go!_"

She never saw him, but she would always start running down the road in the sand, heading away from the voice.

And then her steps would slow, and then the howling of wolves would begin.

And then, Orihime would begin to run again.

She'd run until breathless, until her scarf was ripped away in the night, and until she was blind with exhaustion.

And then she would wake up, usually in her bed.

But lately she awoke differently. The last two times she awoke from the dream in the doeskin bed.

"Don't wander," it sounded like Grimmjow said as he left the bed in the early dim light of morning.

Orihime responded by letting her face turn more into the rolled buck hide they used as a pillow. She wasn't sure she heard anything at all, or if he'd actually said anything, still caught in the limbo of dream and sleep. His voice was low, barely more than a murmur, and she thought maybe it was just the humming purring sound she'd learned to accept in the nights she'd slept beside him. That was all that had happened. She knew he wasn't there when she fell asleep those nights, but the few times she woke during the night, he was there, sleeping beside her.

This morning she didn't open her eyes at the words, if they were even real words, knowing he was close, feeling the semi-dark of the cave chamber without seeing it. She could feel him staring at her; even _she_ had that sense. When she did open her eyes after he'd moved away, he was at the cave entry, stepping out into the darkness.

By then, for three days Orihime had awoke beside the human-creature named Grimmjow. In those odd, surreal days of patchy sunlight and the sound of water trickling, she had learned a bit more about him. He always left the same way, with a few nearly inaudible words she sometimes dreamed he spoke. She always let her eyes remain half-closed after he left, knowing that with him gone, there was really little to see in the cave chamber. Just the neat stack of her folded new clothes and the few pieces of pottery at the fire pit.

She sighed and rolled from her side to her back. She usually awoke facing him or with her back to him. Maybe it was for body heat in the sometimes chilly chamber.

Grimmjow preferred the main cave chamber to the dark passages lacing the mountain depths, and Orihime was content to remain there, but, on occasion during those times, she did peek out into the tunnel-ways when he was absent. She never saw much, only the darkness that seemed to push her back into the chamber room, and once, after realizing that Grimmjow may be in that darkness looking right back at her, she decided against any more glimpses.

If he knew about her stunted ventures to the entryway, he said nothing.

This morning was like the others, except that she felt the gnawing doubt eat a bigger bite out of her than usual. Her fears of what being the offering may entail were now replaced with misgivings of not being _enough_.

"Not enough," she said into the dim light of the chamber. Her mother's words came back to her – _try to please him_ – but she quickly tossed the words away.

A pattern developed over those few days, usually with her waking up to him leaving the bed – their bed – before much of the sunlight found its way into the chamber. He was quiet, but she awoke to the soft fur sliding against her leg as he left. She'd traded her filmy gauze dress for other dresses from the ones he'd brought from the lower caves, but he insisted she wear the gauze gown to bed. She did, usually with a blush, but that was all he'd demanded of her so far.

He'd leave in the morning, return for the few meals they shared, and then leave again shortly before evening fell over the land outside the mountain. When exactly he came to bed, she didn't know. He didn't touch her, not directly, but a few times she'd awoken leaning against his arm or with her leg beside his. She couldn't help flinching when she realized it, but she tried not to recoil too much.

"Perhaps he doesn't like me," she whispered now, watching the spot of sunlight enlarging on the cave wall as the sun rose outside. "Maybe he thinks I'm a reject from the village and that's why they offered me."

She sat up and sighed. Maybe he'd guessed right.

But she knew it wasn't true. It made her wonder about her friends there. Last she had seen of them were their shame-ridden faces turned tearfully to her as she'd passed through the street with the Sacrificers. She pushed those thoughts from her mind.

* * *

She went about her morning, waiting for him to return so they could eat. Among their newly established routine were the meals and what she had leaned to call the water room. It was an adjoining cave that housed several basins where the water from the higher runoffs entered and filled. Most were shallow basins, but one in the floor was deep enough to use as a bathing pool. The water was cool and clean, and at Grimmjow's suggestion, she'd promised to use it when the water filled up enough. Aside from some of the general running of her new life, he hadn't added much to their conversations over the days, and she decided he was already growing tired of her. Maybe he didn't like the idea of a hairless girl in his bed. Maybe she was beyond nude to him.

She grimaced at the thought, smoothing her nearly sheer folded gown as she set it aside after changing clothes. Maybe that's why he wasn't too interested in seeing any more of her.

The clothes were mostly dresses, a few skirts and tops, a few pairs of sandals that were almost the correct size. The cloth patterns were patterned in beautiful designs, but had been marred by the saltwater. They were still colorful and welcome, however, and Orihime had a full four changes of clothing. She wondered if there was any men's clothing in the washed-up wreckage. If so, Grimmjow certainly had no interest in using them. She frowned. It reminded her of a question she wanted to ask him.

She settled at the fire pit, eyeing the bowl of fruit near the wall. It was usually fruit and leftovers from the day before for breakfast, but she always waited for him before eating. She ignored her growling stomach as the day wore on and picked up the coil of rope she had been braiding. Every morning or evening, Grimmjow brought cloth, usually old ship sails ripped into strips, and told her to braid them. So far she figured she had enough braided sail-cloth rope to stretch halfway across one of her village's streets. She wasn't sure why he had her do it.

"Maybe he figures it's as close as I'll get to weaving now," she mumbled to herself. Another disturbing thought occurred to her. "Or maybe he's going to tie me to the chamber."

The rope had accumulated and been coiled in a heap, but that day, the coil looked a little smaller. She lowered the three long strips of sail she was braiding into another length of makeshift rope. She saw no sign of the rest of the rope she'd made. Perhaps she'd miscalculated how much she had already made.

She felt more than seen Grimmjow return to the entryway. She looked up, automatically steering her gaze past his lack of clothing. "You're back," she greeted eagerly. "Are you hungry?"

He glanced at the bowl of fruit and then the rope in her fingers, and then to the pale dress she wore. It was only slightly damaged at one hem from the seawater, the yellow color fainter and some of the geometric design at the edging washed out. "Do you like it here, Orihime?"

Her hands stilled on the braid she was making, her face immobile in surprise for a long moment. She quickly smiled, nodding. "Yes." To her, it sounded more like a question than a reply, so she added: "I didn't know caves could be so cool and bright at the same time." She looked to the spot of sunlight on the wall near the fruit bowl that marked noon. "And the water is perfectly clean and clear, not like what I thought caves would be."

He glanced to the basin of water that daily collected from the higher mountain runoff that served as their freshwater supply. He looked back to the nervousness in her face. "Not just this room. Not just here."

She felt her mouth drop open, unsure she was correct in hearing what she thought he was saying. "Not just _here_?"

He shook his head and made a quick, impatient wave of his hand, tail twitching in annoyance. "Come on. Leave that here. We have enough."

She frowned, but set down her braiding. "I do like it here, Grimmjow. I do –"

"Come on."

She didn't move fast enough, and he took her wrist and lifted her to her feet. She followed him out of the cave entry and into the dark void, feeling her fears of the blackness and uncertain footing rush her.

"These caves wind all through the mountain," he said, taking her hand and angling it to the wall.

She felt a rope meet her fingers in the dark, a familiar rope, and she realized it was one she'd braided.

"I can't keep torches lit everywhere, and I know you're going to leave the chamber eventually," he said without emotion. "You could be lost for days before I find you."

"Oh, but I won't leave."

His hand closed her fingers over the rope and she realized it was strung along the wall, about hip-high, stretching out to one side.

"You don't have to stay in the chamber all day." His hand closed over hers on the rope and pulled it a few inches along the braided cloth. "Keep your hand on that."

"Okay." In the dark, the rope seemed more lifeline than a mere pastime of braiding. She felt him take her other hand, and secure with the rope and his hand on hers, Orihime felt her fears of fading away.

"Now walk and don't move to either side. To the right is a deep drop ahead."

His voice was facing away from her, and as he stepped away, taking her with him by hand, she realized where all the extra rope had gone. For half an hour she followed him through the windings and switchbacks of the passages, by hand and with the rope railing in her other hand. She smiled as they went, her feet warm in the nearly-fitting leather sandals with the long ribbon ties that laced her ankles. They walked for five minutes more before she realized also that they were ascending steadily higher into the mountain caves.

"You strung all this rope?" she finally asked.

"Yes. I'll mark more tunnels you can navigate, but I think this one should be first."

She smiled more in the dark, her fingers gripping his tighter. "Thank you."

He was silent for a moment as they walked. "You can't stay in the chamber all the time. You'll get bored."

She felt a knot with a loop in the rope. "Oh! I think I left a bad braid in –"

His hand gripped hers more as their steps changed. "That's supposed to be there. It means you're going up a steep incline."

She nodded at the unseen marker in the dark. Two steps later, the cave floor swooped up. She climbed behind him, feeling him half pull her when the uneven stone beneath her feet dipped. "Have you been through all the caves here, Grimmjow?"

"Most, yes."

"Did you ever get lost?"

He chuckled, the sound bouncing off the walls around them. "Yeah. A few times. Once for about three days."

"...Oh." She kept the rope in her left hand and stepped closer behind him, hearing birds from ahead of them as the dark seemed to lighten a shade grayer. "Where does this tunnel go?"

"Outside." His tone sharpened. "But that's it, Orihime. You can't leave here. I won't let you."

She nodded. "I understand, Grimmjow."

Before she could ask any more questions, the dark around them grew even lighter and the air seemed somehow freer. There was a large knot that passed through her hand, another marker, and Grimmjow turned them aside to a level section of cave on their left.

Here the dark opened into a cave ledge in the mountain that overlooked the forested slope outside. Orihime smiled on impulse at the blue of the sky that appeared, even as Grimmjow's hand tightened on hers.

The cave opened out to a ledge above most of the treetops below the sunny sky and in the distance Orihime could see the natural harbor near her village. Around her the cave dissolved into sunlight and treetops, the sound of birds singing seeming to welcome her back into the sunlit world.

She smiled, stopping at Grimmjow's side as he glanced down at her. Below them the forest hid most of the town, but a few farms and flocks could be seen amid the foliage, grazing in small pastures with attendants keeping watch. Everything looked tiny and Orihime was sure she and Grimmjow were too small to be identified from where they stood on the ledge. A rustle of warm breeze went through the trees, and she smiled more at the feel of it on her bare arms. The yellow dress was sleeveless and she welcomed the sun's invisible touch on her skin.

"Oh, it's so pretty out here," she breathed, inhaling the air fragrant with green life. "It's so green and, and the blues of the water!" She grabbed Grimmjow's arm without thinking and pointed to the harbor with her other hand. "Look! We can see fishing boats!"

He was looking at her hand on his forearm.

Orihime looked there, too, and quickly withdrew her hand. "Oh...I..." She bit her lip and slowly looked back to the water. "But we can. We can see the boats fishing, Grimmjow."

He glanced to the harbor, nodding.

She sighed, clasping her hands together before her. "It's lovely up here. Such a beautiful view. I can see the whole village and far beyond, too. Even the water, so blue...and the sky... Oh, thank you for letting me come here, Grimmjow."

Around them, the day had turned into afternoon and the early blooming flowers were closing for the day's heat. Other flowers on vines climbing the rocky cave entrance's sides were opening, showing off white and pink saucer-shaped flowers. Smaller petaled flowers trailed up the vines, too, in various colors. Grimmjow picked one of the smaller, petal flowers and gave it to Orihime when he saw her gaze settle on it. "You want that?"

"Oh, yes, thank you, Grimmjow," she said, smiling and fingering the small blue flower. She tucked it into her hair at her ear. "Thank you so much."

He nodded, looking past her to the view off the ledge. She turned, sighing as her fingers carefully patted the flower at her temple.

"You can come here whenever you want to," he said, watching her eyes take in the splendid greens of the trees below them. "Just follow the rope and don't let go of it. Stay with it and you can go back and forth to our chamber, Orihime."

She smiled a sigh and looked up at him. "I can? Really?"

He knew the smile should have softened the scowl planted on his face, but he didn't let it. In the light of the sun his too-feline, un-man appearance was all the more evident. He could see her try to hide her drifting attention as she glanced to his hair, his teeth, his fur-hidden skin. He kept his gaze on her, but stepped back, into the shadier part of the ledge balcony. "Just don't stray."

She nodded, smiling more, a genuine smile, enough to make him grin a little. She had been about to look away, but instead she paused, watching his grin form. For some reason it brought a flush to her cheeks, and then her gaze did drop and settle on the canopies of trees below them.

"I'll get something to eat. Stay here."

Before she could speak, he was gone.

* * *

They spent the afternoon on the ledge. It was large enough that Orihime had little fear of falling. A slight rise of shrubbery managing to plant along the ledge marked the rock boundary well, and the flowering vines edged the cave's sides. Orihime enjoyed those hours as they made a meal of figs, dates, and roasted squirrel. They watched the fishing boats go to shore in the harbor and a small merchant ship leave from the pair of docks that led from her village.

They idled the time doing little, talking about the rope rail and Grimmjow's plans to make others inside the mountain so that Orihime could traverse the interior more at her leisure. She noticed he stayed in the shadier parts of the ledge, and she assumed this was because he was too warm in the sun. She loved the sun's rays.

"I'll braid as much rope as you need, Grimmjow," she said as they headed back into the mountain depths later that evening. "Oh, is there more sail? Will we have enough?"

"We have plenty of sail." He liked that she'd said _we_, but knew she hadn't much choice. He'd already made that decision for her. She followed behind him, her hand on the rope rail and her other in his. A few times he found himself clasping her hand too tightly. He didn't want her to misstep, but neither did he want to injure her. Her hand was so small, so frail-seeming in his grasp. He had to remember to ease off on his grip a couple times.

She grew quiet and after a few twists and turns during the tunnels that descended and then rose again, her troubled voice reached him. "Grimmjow, you said you got the clothes and sail-cloth from shipwrecks."

"Yeah."

"Did you... Was it anytime lately?"

He frowned in the dark, feeling her hand lag in his as her steps slowed. "No."

"Not recently?"

"No. Why?" He felt an unfamiliar resentment rise in him, one that resulted from something he couldn't quite identify. "Who do you know at sea?" He turned to her, knowing she couldn't see him in the black of the passage. "Is that why they offered you? Do you have a fiancé lost at sea?"

"Oh, no," she said, shaking her head too much as she looked up at him, unseeing in the dark. There was no guile in her face, staring blankly for him. "My brother went to sea a few weeks ago. He was supposed to be gone for several months."

He frowned, both in relief and that she had a brother. Brothers searched for lost sisters, he figured. He watched the anticipation in her face; it wasn't the same type he'd seen when he returned to their chamber, but something different. "Why are you worried?"

"I didn't know when the wreckage had washed up."

"It's not from any recent ship, Orihime. Long before you got here; last summer and earlier." He saw her sigh, some of the smile come back to her lips. His thumb rubbed the back of her hand in his, feeling her skin void of fur.

She stepped back, blushing at the touch, and then she tripped as her sandal caught an untied ribbon lace. The deep pit that opened to their side opposite the rope rail nearly swallowed her as her loose lace snagged her steps and she fell.

On instinct Grimmjow's hand locked on hers, but not before her feet slipped and she tumbled into the gaping black, caught only by his grip on her wrist. For a few seconds she twisted at the edge of the stony drop into the dark void below.

"Aghh! Grimmjow!" She had barely cried out than he pulled her back up and set her against the wall beneath the rope rail. She grappled for the rope above her, pressing her back to the wall behind her, legs pulled back from what she thought was the edge. "...No..."

"You're all right," he said, kneeling closer to her as her hands grasped and flailed. One of her hands found him instead of the rope over her head and without hesitation, both of her arms came around him. Her forehead buried in his chest, her whimpers in the dark echoing off the stone passageway.

She shook her head as he gathered her closer to him, feeling no fight in her this time when he pulled her to him.

She sobbed, arms around his waist. "No...don't..."

"You're all right, Orihime," he said, bracing his arm over her back, feeling her shiver from fear rather than cold. Her hands clenched on his back, fingers oblivious to the pelt of fur. He smoothed her hair down her back, feeling her tremble against him. "You didn't fall. Your sandal was untied, that's all."

She nodded against him, sobbing slightly. "I can't see anything here, Grimmjow."

He actually liked that she couldn't, liked that she let herself rest against him without reservations, even with her face against his chest. The faint smell of sandalwood was in her hair, drawing him closer. He felt one of her hands slide down his back as she moved her knees to one side so she could lean better to him.

Her hand paused on the fur at the side of his back and then suddenly flinched away. She pulled from his embrace, her hands jerking from him. "I...I..."

He leaned away, seeing her face change to something he couldn't read.

"No," she said, trying to see him in the dark. "No, don't —"

"I'm not," he said pointedly, knowing what words were to follow. "Don't touch you. That's it, isn't it?"

Her lips trembled as she shook her head, her hand reaching again to the rope above her. "I didn't...didn't mean –"

"I know what you meant." He stood up and grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet.

She hobbled back to the wall, her feet together, lace still untied.

"Stand still."

She nodded, remaining blind in the dark as he bent and tied – too tightly – the ribbon lace of her sandal. "Th-thank –"

"Come on!" He grabbed her wrist and jerked her into motion.

* * *

Orihime didn't have a chance to hold the rail rope as they made a hasty return trip to the cave chamber. She followed behind Grimmjow at a speed too fast for her navigate on her own, leaving her every step at his mercy. By the time they got to the evening light of the chamber, her tight sandal lace had made her ankle cold and numb.

Grimmjow pushed her to the bed and sliced through the tourniquet sandal lace with a single claw. "Stay here."

He left before Orihime could speak.

For a long moment she sat on the bed, watching the empty dark of entryway where he'd left.

She'd ruined it all. She wasn't sure how, but she had managed to spoil the freedom and beauty of the trip to the ledge. She covered her face with her hands, feeling tears form as she ignored the slowly returning circulation to her ankle. She let herself sob, not only because she'd ruined the outing of the day, but because she knew she'd never see Sora again now that she was sequestered in the cave, and because her mother had sold her future to a beast.

She shook her head, wiping her tears from her cheeks as the cave grew darker. She frowned at the sandal loose around her foot. She shimmied her foot out of it, and then bent and removed the other sandal. She'd rather be barefoot than chance falling again. She wasn't so sure Grimmjow would catch her next time.

She wiped her face in the yellow skirt of her dress, and then looked up to see Grimmjow watching her from the chamber entry. She slowly stood, easily seeing the irritation in his face. "I'm sorry, Grimmjow. I didn't...I didn't mean to make you angry."

He didn't move, watching her hands fidget with the sash tie at her waist.

Her gaze went to his side. "Does it hurt?"

He frowned, stepping into the chamber. "Hurt? Is that some sort of joke?"

She shook her head as he stepped more into the room. "No. I don't think... But how did you get it?"

His frown turned to wary confusion. "I was born like this, Orihime. A damned cat-infant."

"Oh?" She frowned at his side and took a cautious step closer, her hand reaching tentatively to his side. "I meant this."

Grimmjow didn't move as her hand rested at the side of his back. This time she didn't pull away, her fingers remaining gently at his waist just beneath his ribs at his back. He felt the sharpness under her fingers. She looked quickly to him, but didn't take her hand away.

"How did you get it?"

Now he did turn to look to her fingers. Under his skin amid the short fur were several small bumps, each slightly tender, something he'd gotten used to over the years. Occasionally they grew sharp, as if glass was embedded under his skin, but it was an awkward spot for him to see. He usually ignored it, and it rarely really pained him.

Her fingers felt over the sharp points, not retreating this time, even when she caught her breath at the slitting points. Her other hand rested on his chest as she bent to examine the spot better. "You have something under the skin. I felt it before. It was like, like glass."

He moved away and knelt at the fire pit. "Are you hungry?"

"No." She watched him arrange the firewood beneath the spit. "Do they hurt? The glass. Have you tried to get it out?"

He busied himself with the kindling and leftover coals. "I can't see it well enough to work on it."

"Is it glass?"

"No." He remained crouched, but turned to see her still standing. "It doesn't matter what it is."

She joined him at the pit, kneeling beside him. "I can remove them, if they hurt, Grimmjow."

He glanced behind him at the small bumps he knew were under his fur and skin. Usually he forgot about them until something touched them wrong and made them tender. "They don't bother me." He looked to the top of her head as she put her hand back to the spot near his back. "Leave them alone."

She didn't, her fingers pressing slightly over the points of sharp poking from his fur. "They should come out. You could get infected."

He abandoned the firewood as Orihime kneeled better beside him, resting one knee near his, moving his arm to see the side of his back. "Is that why you moved your hand before in the tunnels?"

She nodded, looking up to him. She held out her hand. On the palm was a faint red scratch. "I didn't know what it was. It was dark and I wasn't sure..."

He took her wrist and examined the thin red line of scratch on her palm. "That was why you withdrew from me?"

She nodded, attempting to smile a little. Her other hand rested over the small points at his back. "How did you get them?"

He released her hand. "I was told I was cursed. That's all. I always figured it had something to do with that. I don't remember getting them. It doesn't matter anyway."

She realized her hand was gently rubbing over the spot, not enough to irritate him, but silently counting the six small bumps. "Would you tell me what happened? I mean, how you were born a cat-child?"

For a moment the softness of her tone nearly made him nod, but instead he shook his head and draped an arm over her shoulders and leaned close to her face. "I'm a cat-beast, Orihime. That's it."

She didn't move away or flinch from him, remaining kneeling beside him. She nodded, focusing on his eyes as he spoke. She smiled more, and most of it stayed, even when he raised a hand to her face.

His fingers touched her chin and then her cheek as his eyes went over her hair, seeing the late evening's poor light cast it in dark shades. She didn't move away, remaining near as his hand followed up her cheek so that his thumb rested below her eye as he studied her intently, smiling just a little at the flower still tucked in her hair.

"I like the flower, Grimmjow," she said quietly, seeing his gaze settle at her temple.

"You had a flower in your hair when I first saw you at the rock."

She nodded a little. "I lost it on the way here, I think."

He moved a strand of hair back from her face, and as he did, one of his claws caught her cheek, scratching faintly.

She sucked in a muted gasp and tried not to flinch, but he'd already saw the reaction.

His hand dropped and he turned back to the fire. "Are you hungry?"

She shook her head, senses still attuned to where his hand had paused on her hair. She wiped at the light scratch. There was nothing, no blood, and even the sharpness of his claw was fading. "It didn't hurt, Grimmjow." When he didn't turn or speak, she added, "It really didn't. It didn't even –"

"Are you hungry or not?" he snapped, not looking to her.

She let her hands fold into her lap, feeling the fleeting closeness to him evaporate, as if he was sucking back any need for understanding. "No."

"Then go to bed."

She didn't move immediately, instead watching the taut muscles in his back and shoulders as he needlessly arranged the firewood under the roasting spit. She could see the tightness at his jaw, making her guess at the words he wasn't speaking. She finally stood and moved to the shadowy corner of the cave where she usually changed into the gauze gown for bed.

He watched her change, out of the corner of his eye, knowing it was too dim in the chamber for her to see well enough. He could. He could see the curvy outline of her figure as she turned her back to him in the dark corner and pull off the pale dress. She moved quickly, letting the dress drop and whisking the wispy gauze over herself.

This time she changed without letting the flower drop from her hair, but then carefully picked it off and set it on her stack of folded dresses. For a moment he let himself replay her fingers on his side and the soft smoothness of the skin of her cheek. He saw her turn and look his way, brushing her hair from her face with her fingers, her expression baffled and hopeful at the same time.

She moved to the bed, her hand groping the cave wall as she directed her path in the near darkness. He saw her crawl into the tanned hides and doeskin, seeing her watch in his direction. Contrary to his usual routine, he stood up and joined her.

He could feel her steel herself from moving away from him, knowing the stone wall was behind her and she couldn't move far away anyway. But she did attempt to keep her spot on the hides. He could hear her breathing, shallow breaths as she alternately held her breath and made herself breathe normally.

"I was cursed from before I was born, Orihime," he said, unsure why he wanted to tell her. "Born to a natural woman. She raised me, but told me I wasn't her child, that someone dropped me off with her to raise. But I knew she was my mother."

"Are you sure?" she asked, the timidity still in her tone.

"Yes." His hand felt along the doeskin between them, finding her hand. He took her fingers, lightly, not wanting to feel her hand tense in his. It didn't.

"The glass points, are they part of it?"

"I don't think so. Some villages I've been to, sometimes the braver youths would throw stuff with slingshots when they saw me." He chuckled, turning his head to see her in the dark. "I caught a few sometimes, so maybe they're old stone shots. I don't remember getting them; had them as long as I can remember."

She smiled a little, unable to see more of him than a vague outline beside her. "Maybe that's what they are."

He turned back to face the ceiling, letting his thumb edge over the back of her hand in his between them. "Would you go back to your village if you could?"

"...No."

He'd expected that answer. He scowled at the stone ceiling over them that ricocheted the sound of drip-drip of water elsewhere in the chamber. "If I let you leave, Orihime, would you go?"

She shook her head. "No, Grimmjow."

He didn't believe her answer, but hearing it felt good. He heard her sigh and felt the movement of breath on his arm beside her.

And for the tenth time since he'd met her, he contemplated how many years of his life he'd trade to be a full man.


	11. Water's Edge

"...doesn't mean she's...still here," said the first female voice.

"I want to leave it anyway," the second girl insisted. "It's the least we can do. I wish I'd known what my uncle meant when he said they were going to have a final sacrifice."

A sob caught the girl's tone, and Grimmjow listened curiously for her to continue. He'd rarely heard anyone cry except in fright or pain, and Orihime's sobbing from the day she'd almost fell in the caves was still with his thoughts. He vaguely recalled doing it himself a few times, when he was very young and had first left home, but not since. He stepped carefully among the thick trees to see Sacrifice Rock where the three voices were coming from. He'd followed the voices, two girls and a boy, for a while now and waited as patiently as his instinct allowed him to.

"I thought he meant they were going to lay a trap for the cat-man, not give it one of our friends," the second girl said through her sobs. "I didn't know!"

"Keep your voice down," the boy said. "It might be around. We shouldn't even be here."

Grimmjow had a good view of them now, through the tree leaves, just above them, farther away than they could see clearly, even if they knew where to look for him. They were teenage, with calf-length dresses and the standard pants and tunic for the male youth. The girls were crouched at the rock, lovingly placing something at the base while the boy stood watch.

He was armed with a bow, something Grimmjow was familiar with and had gotten a few arrowhead glances in the past, and had an arrow nocked, alert to any disturbances in the trees and boulders around them. They were all Orihime's age, their postures making it obvious they were sneaking to the rock.

"We should have done something," the second girl said as she stood up. She wiped her face. "We just turned our backs and let it happen."

"What could we do?" the boy asked, giving the girls a quick look before returning to his watch. "Our voices have no sway in the governing of the village. Even her mother didn't care." His tone took a chill. "You know Sora would never have allowed it."

The first girl was looking around, for a few seconds in the direction where Grimmjow stood. He knew she couldn't see him, with her moderate vision and dulled senses. She shook her head. "No, he'll be angry. And that mother of theirs," she added in a sharp tone, "look at her now. She lives in that big house, given to her, plus whatever she got for giving – selling – Orihime. The nice house on the edge of town and the first shares of the crops this harvest."

"It doesn't make sense," the boy said. "To give a cat-beast a girl. Why? It's disgusting!"

"Shh," said the first girl, looking around at their surroundings. Her hand rested on the rock, fingers recoiling as they found s deep scratch from a previous sacrifice. "It might be close."

"Anything smart enough to want a girl rather than a sheep knows when the _on_ full moon is. Which," he added, looking to the second girl, "is why your uncle offered Orihime on an _off_ full moon. And to what purpose? Is Orihime supposed to negotiate for us? Or is she simply food for –"

"Oh, stop!" the second girl cried, covering her ears with her hands. "Don't say it."

The boy shook his head. "You know the elders talk about it; do we try to suffice the beast with a girl because he's a man? Or feed it something large to keep it away longer?" The second girl began to speak, but the boy didn't let her. "Or have we built ourselves a god?"

At this, both girls looked to the ground where they'd placed their items.

"You've heard the rumors and whispers," the boy said as Grimmjow closed the distance between them and him.

He wondered how close the boy was to guessing.

"That old net mender, his family makes offerings of their own, secretly, to keep the beast away from their ducks," the boy said, his tone more hushed. "And I've heard others say things like that; some actually pray to it."

"Foolish gossip," the first girl said.

"I've heard things," the second girl added.

"It's silly," the first girl maintained, but this time in an uncertain tone.

"It makes more sense than this foolishness," the boy said. "Why not bribe a beast to stay away? You may call it praying, but it's bribing, negotiating. And, if this cat-man can understand it, maybe it works."

The second girl was close to tears again, and from where Grimmjow stood, he could see her cheeks shining wet.

"Then why Orihime?" she asked.

The boy sighed. "Because her mother is very persuasive. You've seen her, the way she acts and flirts. She wanted the big house and a handsome payment for her daughter, and she got it. She met up with the right people in town, and convinced them this would work."

The second girl began to sob, and the first put an arm around her shoulder.

"We should go," the first said.

"I want to know if she's...alive. I don't want to think of her torn up..." The second girl nearly collapsed in the other girl's arms.

Grimmjow saw the boy put a hand on the first girl and prod her back to the stony path leading from Sacrifice Rock.

"Let's go. If it's gone, it doesn't mean she's alive; it doesn't really mean anything at all." He gave a final glance behind them to the rock at the items they'd left as he followed the girls down the path.

Grimmjow watched them go, saw their misery of losing Orihime. He could understand part of it, but on a different level than they felt it.

For an hour he watched the rock, waiting for any sign of trap or hunters. There were none. During that time he thought back on the boy's guesses, grinning at how accurate a few of them were. Assured that there was no chance of trap or hunters nearby, he went to the rock and collected what they'd left.

* * *

The moderately sunny day had clouded over by the time Grimmjow got to the cave chamber he now shared with Orihime. For nearly ten days she'd slept in his bed, sometimes closer than others, but always within reach.

Orihime wasn't sure of the passage of days. The sun made its usual trip overhead outside the mountain, marking the day by the strips of sunlight that moved along the stone interior walls, but sometimes the days were cloudy and she lost track of time. She looked up from coaxing the meager fire at the fire pit as Grimmjow entered from the dark entryway.

"I've got the fire a little stronger now," she said, standing as he met her.

In one arm he carried several crocks, each plugged with a large cork and covered with a cloth and tied with string. "Good. We'll eat outside. It's starting to rain, but the ledge faces away from the breeze."

"Oh, rain? Good." She smiled with anticipation at the thought of rain. "I haven't seen rain since I got here." Her eyes had rested on the jars, but now they flicked to Grimmjow's face, fearing she'd said something insulting.

He was grinning, handing her the first jar. "It hasn't _rained_ since you've been here, Orihime. You like rain?"

She nodded, smiling wider as she took the jar. He knelt and set the other two jars beside the pit. "Do you?"

He shrugged. "Never thought much about it."

She glanced to the catch basin in the room. "All the water is from runoff?"

"There are a few small streams that feed some of the crevices, too, when the varmints dam up the water."

"Oh." She glanced to the adjoining chamber where the water collected in the larger basin. It was easier to see in the chamber now. Grimmjow had attached a few torches in different spot so Orihime could see better, but they usually burned low so as not to fill the rooms with smoke. It was enough for Orihime to make her way more easily around the chambers.

He'd also strung more rope along the tunnels, and Orihime could traverse several passageways now to other cave rooms. Slowly a home was forming.

She shook the jar, frowning. Something small shifted inside.

"Your friends left these for you at the rock." He watched her face turn from wonder to something softer, something wounded. "They miss you."

"Oh..." She bit her lip a little, watching his expression. "You saw them? Who...? What did they look like?"

"Two girls and a boy. About your age." He saw her fingers tug at the tie on the jar she held.

"Oh?" She looked to the string as her fingers untied it. It was tied in a large, loopy bow, with double braided sting in six colors of thread. She stopped untying it, her fingers carefully brushing the tasseled edges. "What did they look like?"

"Not as pretty as you." He nearly growled that he'd said it aloud; it was supposed to remain a thought.

She glanced quickly to him, smiling and blushing faintly. "Thank you." She felt the heat from the small fire glow on her cheeks, liking the small giddiness that the comment sent through her veins.

"One of the girls had lighter hair than yours. The other's was dark." He enjoyed the flush she couldn't keep from her face, liking the way her fingers toyed with the thread she slowly untied from the jar. "And a boy. Your age. Dark hair. He had a bow."

"Oh, yes. He's Mara's brother. The girl with the brown hair is Mara. The other girl was Aina. We wove together a few times." She smiled at the thread. "This was her favorite pattern. Like a rainbow of threads, she'd say."

He saw the hurt drift through her face, the longing and loneliness that she tried to shut down. He moved the other two jars near her. "What are these?"

She looked up, smiling again, this time a different smile. She whisked off the thread braid and laid it near her side, careful not to damage the pattern. She opened the cork stopper and squealed at the contents. "Rice! Oh, yes, rice, Grimmjow!"

She held it up so he could see the whitish grains inside. He nodded, amused at her outburst.

"That's a grain, right?" He was suddenly aware of their lack of proper cooking necessities.

"Yes. Do you like rice?" She shook the jar happily.

"Can't remember the last time I had it." Her smile was contagious, willing him to try whatever was in the jar. "Do you like it?"

"I love it." She nearly hugged the large jar to herself, eyeing the other jars. "What is in those?"

"Find out. Make some rice for supper and we'll take it up to the ledge to eat," he said, finding an odd pleasure in her delight.

"Oh, yes... Let's see," she said, glancing around at their few utensils and cookery. "I'll need water, and that pot, and a flat rock..."

* * *

By the time their meal was ready, Orihime and Grimmjow found that the day had surrndered to rain and fog. The ledge was awash in rain water, making the view out the cave opening a surreal misty green. Orihime didn't care. She quickly set down the bowls of dinner she carried and nearly sprinted into the wide rock edge.

Grimmjow dropped the bucket of water he carried, sloshing the contents against the cavern wall as he lunged after her.

She had stopped on the ledge, a few feet away from the edge, but in the mist it looked like she'd walked out onto a foggy cloud. She raised her arms up, smiling as the drizzle of rain splattered her face.

Instinctively Grimmjow's arm laced around her waist, not roughly, but enough to make her lower her arms and turn to look at him.

"I'm not falling," she said, leaning slightly against him as one arm rested across his at her waist. She again looked up into the gray sky that let rain spatter them. "Oh, I miss the rain."

He didn't see the magnificence in it, but watched her face as the water found tracks down her cheeks. "You're not afraid of falling?"

"The edge is way over there," she said, pointing into the fog. "I remember how many steps it is to the very edge – I counted them the other day – and we're safe here."

She let her arm lower, resting it across his at her waist, sighing as the sound of the raindrops falling made the ferny green landscape seem more isolated than it already was. The fog hovered at the ledge, but dropped lower over the side, allowing the treetops to poke through the cloud of mist.

"It's like standing on a mountain in the clouds, isn't it?" The fur beneath her fingers reminded her than she wasn't acting coyly childish with one of her male friends. "I mean, I know it isn't a mountain in the sky, Grimmjow," she said, her fingers smoothing his short pelt hairs in the right direction as she looked up at him. "But it's almost like this is the only place left. No world. Just...here."

He wanted to say it was a foolish notion, but he didn't. He eased her back from the foggiest part of the ledge. "Let's eat before it gets too cold."

She darted from him, ducking under his arm as she raised it. "Oh, yes! I'll set it up."

He frowned, wishing he'd let her linger for a moment longer. He gave the treetops among the gray fog a brief glimpse and joined her.

She set out their dishes and ladled out drinking water from the bucket into two cups. Along with the rice, they had several pieces of roasted rabbit and a small jar of honey that had been in one of the other containers from Sacrifice Rock.

"Do you like honey?" she asked, setting out the small cork-stopped jar. She could already smell the sweetness from it, making her yearn for other tastes from her former home life.

"Yeah. We've got some in the lower caves, but it's frozen."

Her attention snapped to him as he sat down at one wall, watching her. "You do?"

"We do."

She smiled more. "We have honey?"

He nodded. "Lots of other stuff there, too. We'll go down there soon, once I get some lights planted."

She settled next to him, her mind wondering about the lower caves. "They've brought honey before?"

"No. I can get it from the forest, certain times of the year." He watched her scoop up a mound of rice with a slightly bent spoon. She popped it into her mouth and munched contentedly.

"Hmmmm," she breathed, eyes closing. "'Sgood."

He sampled the rice, nearly forgetting to pay attention to the taste as he watched her eyes smile, even as the drizzle dampened her pastel dress. She didn't seem to mind, chewing until she swallowed, and then grabbing up another bite.

"You found a brush."

Her eyes opened and she nodded, chewing the next bite. "In the chest you brought up. Thank you."

He grinned. "I didn't wreck the ship."

A pout hampered her chewing. "I feel a little guilty for using things that –"

"Don't," he said. "It sank. Better for you to get use of it than to be buried under the sea."

It did little to make Orihime feel better about the chest of personal items he'd brought up from the lower caves, but she was grateful to have a brush and a few other needs met. From the small chest, she found a few undergarments and a small polished mirror that was patina-covered. She spent part of her evenings trying to bring back some of its reflective qualities.

"They want to know if you're alive," he said, not quite wanting to broach the subject. It was only fair that he did, but he didn't want to be fair or to share her. "They're worried about you."

She slowed chewing, looking into the fog where the edge lay in the fog. "I wish I could tell them...that I'm okay, and alive, and okay here."

For a moment neither added to the conversation, each eating, lost in similar trains of thought. He watched the flower in her hair droop with the humidity, contrasting against her now fully-brushed hair. She looked sleeker, more like the first time he'd seen her at the rock now that she'd found the brush and a few other items from the chest.

The rain turned into a downpour by the time they finished eating, soaking the ledge and making the stone slick. Orihime didn't venture into the fog again, even when some of the mist cleared as the rain drove it away.

Darkness fell early and they made their way back down the roped trail in the dark. As they neared their cave chamber, the faint light from its interior met them; like a beacon, Orihime had come to think of it.

She glanced to the water chamber as they entered, hearing the trickle of rainwater as it filled the basins. "Ooh, maybe there's enough water for a real bath this time." She'd waded into the shin-deep water of the largest tub basin, but was relishing the idea of a truly submerging bath.

Even in the small town, the public bath was free to every resident, despite the drop in every other luxury. It was usually run by volunteer help, and Orihime's turn at keeping the towel supplied fell to every other week

"Might be a bit cold," Grimmjow said as they deposited their dinnerware beside the basin where they usually washed them. Already the basin was full, the excess leaking out through a crack in the wall. "I'll set a torch near the door."

"Thank you." For a moment Orihime watched him light one of the torches he'd recently made – another addition to the caves on her behalf – and attach it to the stone wall near the opening of the water chamber. It shone into the next room enough to utilize the tub inside, but not quite as brilliant as their main chamber.

It didn't matter anyway, she thought. He could see her just as easily with or without the light. She'd been trying to come to terms with that concept.

"I'm going to check the passages," he told her, watching her move to the stack of clothes near the shadowed side of the room. "I'll be back soon."

"Thank you."

He left out into the dark of the tunnels.

It was the usual procedure, his check of the passageways. At first it had made Orihime unsettled, thinking that there could be a trespasser in the dark depths outside their chamber, but over the last few days, she realized it was only Grimmjow's way of giving her a little privacy to use the water chamber. For that, she was thankful.

The day grew late, the evening sun gone and the filtered moonlight only gray on the stone floor as the misty air held rain. She took her gauze gown and went into the next room. The basin sunk into the floor there was nearly brimming with water. Orihime knelt beside it, feeling the wet, giggling a bit. It _was_ cool.

She didn't look behind her this time as she slipped out of her lavender dress and into the deep water. She shuddered a little as the wet lapped up to her ankles and then knees. The basin was overrunning at the far end of the pool. She figured it was long enough to lie down in, but she'd never done that. She slowly sat on her knees, and then turned them to her side and leaned her back to the edge. It took a few moments in the cool depths for her body temperature to adjust and appreciate the coolness. She sighed, sinking deep against the side, noting how the room seemed to be all gray.

Slate walls mixed with limestone and darker gray, flint and marble-looking floor – all grays. She submerged and let her hair weight with water, feeling the cold close over her head like a final night veil. It was too cool to stay under for long, and she sat up and let the water level bob around chest.

The top of her breasts wanted to float up, but just enough to make round, flesh-colored moons in the water's surface. She blushed, knowing there was little she could do to keep them modestly under water.

She took a few moments to wash with the cloth she'd parted out from one of the heavy pieces of material from the trunk. It was supposed to be a shawl, but had become hopelessly discolored from the seawater. She had no soap, but sufficed with scrubbing all the more vigorously. She closed her eyes and splashed her face, wiping back her hair as it stuck to her eyes.

It was good to feel the rain again on her skin. And, it was good to smell and taste the rice her friends had left. She refused to be too sad; they'd thought of her.

They'd thought enough of her, in fact, that they'd risked the town elders' wrath if caught at Sacrifice Rock.

She knew it was an especially risky chance for Aina, whose uncle was one of the Sacrificers. As thrilled as she was to know they hadn't forgotten her and cared about her wellbeing, she didn't want them to chance such a visit again.

"A way to leave a message," she murmured aloud, looking to the stone ceiling vaulting over the room. The sound of water trickling was stronger now, running off the excess in the darker side of the pool. "Somehow..."

The flickering light from the torch in the next chamber muted and Orihime's attention went to the entry.

Grimmjow stood between the rooms, watching her in the water. "Not too cold?"

"No." She submerged another few inches, which only made her chest lift more, topping the water in pale rounds. She sat up a little more, still decently covered, now with a blush. "It's deep."

He nodded, for a moment watching the rings of water swell out from her form as she shifted against the pool side. He took a few more steps and crouched, running a hand in the water. "A lot cooler than before."

"...Yes. And deeper." Orihime fought the urge to submerge. After all, she'd have to come up some time.

He climbed into the water, sending larger rings of water across the pool to her. He watched the slight recoil of emotions on her face, but then sat against the pool, spreading his arms to either side of the slate floor. "The rain is set for all night. The sky is thick with clouds. This will overflow, but runoff. It won't flood the floor." He watched her nod, sending slow swells around her through the water. "Some of the tunnels will be slippery, so don't use any of the rope trails for a while."

"Okay."

For a moment a silence hung between them in the semi-light of the torch, the only sound the insistent trek of water filling the pool.

Grimmjow moved to the side of the tub where she sat, washing her to her neck in the sudden movement of water, but he knew it wasn't why she caught her breath sharply.

Orihime wrapped both arms around her drawn knees, eyes wide on him as he settled next to her and stretched an arm behind her, feeling her back stiffen slightly against his arm. She didn't move away, and slowly she let her gaze go back to the water.

Her first glance was to herself, confident that most of her breasts were obediently submerged, also knowing it wouldn't matter in the muted light. She let her gaze go to where his blue hair trailed into the water from behind his back. It was only a few strands, drifting at where his bent knee topped the water's surface.

She made her arms unlock some of the fierce grip around her legs, looking up as his hand crossed to her knee.

"What color is your hair?" he asked, picking a tress that swirled beside her knee.

She watched him finger the tendril that was heavy in his hand, but splayed into fan-like freedom when he lowered it back to the pool. "Uh, well, auburn, I think. Orange-brown."

He nodded. "That's a medium color?"

"Yes." She watched his hand go back to her knee, her kneecap disappearing beneath his palm. "I think so."

She remained still as he leaned closer, gaze on his eyes, the blue she could see even in the poor light. She held her breath, feeling warmth from him in contrast to the water, as his head bent and his lips met her neck. She was immobile, staring over his shoulder at his back in the dim light, conscious of his lips against her neck, a contact just short of a kiss, the pressing of his caress to just below her jaw. She wasn't sure when she closed her eyes, nerves following his lips as they trailed slow, gentle touches from her ear down her neck, moving to her throat as his hand stayed on her knee.

Orihime felt the cave seem to fall away, her concentration on his mouth at her neck, her throat, licking the water from the arch of her shoulder and then over the roundness of it. She rattled a slow breath, not wanting to break his movements, but needing the oxygen. His lips moved under her chin, up her throat, nudging until she let her head fall back against his arm. Her mind swirled with the touch of warm, firm pressure, bringing a craving from deep inside her she'd never before visited.

She wished he'd kiss her, kiss her mouth, cover her lips so she could react back to him, but he didn't. She could barely stifle the sighing moan in her lungs, instead letting one of her arms around her knees free to hinge her hand over his wrist near her knee.

He leaned back from her, his face lingering over hers as she opened her eyes. She waited, hoping, every muscle in her body tensing, this time in anticipation. Her eyes fell to his lips, which offered no movement to kiss her.

Nor had his hand moved her knee nor attempted any sort of opportunity. For a long, weighty moment his gaze went over her face, memorizing her features, unspeaking as her fingers gripped his wrist.

She let one knee drop, feeling vulnerable and perhaps too froward at the same time.

Grimmjow let his hand glide over her knee still bent and topping the water. He moved away and climbed out of the pool, turning his back to her. "Don't stay in too long, Orihime. You'll get wrinkly."

And then he left the water chamber, leaving wet footprints thought the entryway into the next room.

Orihime sat dumbfounded, nerves still excited, body still expectant. She watched the shadows move in the next chamber, and then saw him go into the black of the tunnels.

"...I won't..." She swallowed down the anticipation building within her.

The water suddenly seemed too warm, the coolness gone, her face blushing scarlet.

She slid deeper into the water, sorting through the new menagerie of feelings lurching through her mind and body.

Within half an hour, Orihime finally got out of the water and dressed, and then into bed. Outside she could hear the rain gather in force and the wind pick up, sending some of the rain that trickled in splattering into the basin.

She waited for Grimmjow to return, long into the night, but he didn't. The torch had given out, leaving her in the dark until she fell asleep.

She wasn't sure when Grimmjow returned, but when he did it was late. He was dry as his leg slid beside hers beneath the doeskin hide, but he smelled of the rain. She didn't say anything, content he was back.

* * *

Grimmjow wasn't sure if she was awake or not when he returned. Usually he knew, but this time, he didn't. Maybe it was the enrapturing contact with her in the pool that had clouded his sense, but he couldn't determine if she was awake or not.

He let her sleep, if she was sleeping, and waited for sleep to come to him. When it did, so did the nightmare.

It was the same nightmare, the haunting dream of the girl in his arms, a girl who fought his embrace, who bit into his flesh, who pleaded for him to release her.

But this time the girl turned and he saw her face, and this time, it was Orihime's face that begged him to let her go.

Her cries were like daggers beneath his skin, sharp and cutting, every whimper and plea against him feeling as if it sliced away a layer of flesh, leaving him torn and bleeding.

It was that pain that woke him to a very real torment.

* * *

**Note:** _Rating may change in future chapters..._


	12. Fire

The cave chamber was still dark when Orihime awoke to Grimmjow moving restlessly beside her. She opened her eyes to the black of night, for a few moments uncertain she'd opened her eyes or not. She lay on her side on the bed, one hand resting below his ribs, just above where the six small bumps beneath his fur were located.

She lifted to her elbow as he cursed under his breath, still half asleep. "Grimmjow?"

She wasn't aware her hand was at his side until his arm slid over her fingers, momentarily locking them there before he abruptly sat up.

She withdrew her hand and sat up, too, moving away as she felt his muscles tense beneath her fingers. "Is something –?"

He threw off the hide covering them. "Get away..."

She moved back to the wall, trying to see him in the dark. The moonlight finding its way through the cracks showed little, only his silhouette in the thick night. She saw his hands go to his face, odd movements, as if he were clawing at his eyes and throat.

"Stay here," he said.

She frowned as he got out of the bed, his breathing ragged and fast, pain leasing his mumbled cursing. She pushed the hide further away. "Grimmjow, what's wrong?"

He didn't answer, standing in the middle of the room, posture throwing a rigid stance in the poor light. Orihime's eyes became accustomed to the faint light and she could see his jerky movements. He scratched at his chest with such intensity she was sure he would claw open trails of blood.

"Stay here," he grumbled and moved to the chamber's entry.

She was out of bed as he went into the black void to the outer tunnels. "Grimmjow, is something wrong?"

He disappeared out the entry.

She dashed across the room. "Grimmjow!"

"Stay there!" His voice echoed in the stony depths of the cave.

"Grimmjow! Wait!"

"Stay there, Orihime!"

Blackness greeted her at the entry as she looked right and left into the unwelcoming openness of the cavern's yawning interior passageways. "But... Are you hurt?"

Only the sound of rapid footfalls came back to her.

"Grimmjow!" She strained to see farther into the black, but only the fading footsteps were heard. "Let me help! Please! Don't...don't leave me, Grimmjow!"

She groped for the rope rail that ran along the left tunnel wall where the footfalls could be heard. She followed it blindly, running too quickly into the blackness, the rope burning through her fingers. "Grimmjow!"

"Stay there!" His voice was uneasy and distant.

She gripped the rope tighter. "Wait! Let me go with you!"

"Stay there, Orihime!"

And then the rope in her hand went slack. It dropped heavily, severed from the other side, cut loose.

Orihime felt as if the world had suddenly sliced the only trickle of oxygen from her lungs. "Grimmjow!"

* * *

The increasing coolness of the cave depths didn't quench the burn of Grimmjow's skin as he bolted expertly along the dark tunnels. He gritted his teeth and ran on, trying to outrun the blistering touch of his flesh that seemed to flame.

It wasn't, and he knew it wasn't, but that was how it felt. From under the short fur of his pelt the heat seemed to sear through him, making him want to peel it off with his bare claws.

"Grimmjow!" he heard Orihime's drift through the tunnels behind him.

She called a few more times, and then there was the silence of distance.

He wasn't sure if he actually heard the sound of sobbing or not, but he imagined it too real to be imagined.

She couldn't follow, not without the rope to guide her, and he'd cut that.

He charged into the lower cave where he kept the haul from the shipwrecks, seeking the solace of cold against the inflamed blood that coursed angrily through his veins. It felt as if rivers of molten fire sped through him.

He stopped and leaned his back to the stone wall, hoping to savor the cold there; instead the wall seemed to ignite and offer no relief. He slid down it, hands balled into fists as a rare helplessness engulfed him.

_...six generations of cat-child... a curse from your ancestors..._

The old woman's voice came back to him as he closed his eyes tightly against her words. His mother. The mother that had shied from claiming him as her child.

_...as far back at the sands, child. Six generations makes you the last..._

As a child, he'd tried to understand when she told him about the life of the curse. She always told him late at night, when she thought he was asleep in their small hut where she tanned hides for the hunters and townsfolk, keeping, Grimmjow knew, him away from the other children. An odd form of protection, but it had worked.

But still, she hadn't been able to claim him as hers.

_...maybe you'll forgive me – her, your mother – someday, but raising a cat-child is a curse in itself..._

As a child, he'd listened to her confessions at night when he was supposed to be sleeping, curled in the tanned deerskins before the hearth, feeling her occasionally stroke his uncannily blue hair, her fingers hard from the tannins rub at his brow, his ears, his chin, moving to those six bumps at his side.

Grimmjow growled at the memories, trying to diffuse the burning in his skin with torturous memories. But he'd grown calluses over those memories long ago – since he'd ran away from the woman, his reluctant mother – to save her any further interaction with him, so this time the distraction didn't work. It didn't sidetrack his senses from the strange burning engulfing him.

Orihime, he thought, his mind and body seeking a different distraction for the torment ravaging him. "Orihime..."

He waited out the blistering pain, trying to imagine her face, her hair, anything to deflect his mind from the pain. He brought back the waters of the pool. Her skin had been soft, her hair fragrant, seeming to swirl in beckon as it waved in the water's ripples. He recalled the taste of the water on her skin, the supple texture of her shoulder, her shy movements when his lips had first touched her skin. He tried to imagine her hand on his wrist, her knee beneath his fingers.

But the scorching pain overrode those senses.

Whatever was going through him and threatening to burn him up alive wouldn't touch her. He wouldn't let it. If the pain drove him mad, as was likely, he wanted to be nowhere near her.

The flaming pain heightened a notch, bringing him to his feet. He lashed out, clawing wildly, sweeping a stacked pile of recovered shipwreck goods to the stone floor. Items rolled in the darkness, settling to lower spots on the floor.

A surge of pain as if his skin was being stretched too far burnt through him. Unable to contain it, he kicked over another stack of crates, letting the contents take flight.

The movement brought on a renewed scorching in his limbs. This time there was no suppressing the pain and he roared against the pain racking his body.

He grabbed at everything he could lay his hands on, rending, throwing, smashing a few of the more delicate items.

Which was why he was there.

He stood still, panting, realizing what he was doing, glad with every crash of breakable that Orihime was nowhere near him, in harm's way, out of any danger he could level on the inanimate objects within his reach.

No, she's alone, abandoned, he thought. Left her there, safe.

Or abandoned and doomed, should he self-destruct.

He stopped thrashing, panting from pain and helplessness at alleviating whatever possessed him. He heaved over a stack of small barrels.

Alone. Blind and trapped in the cave tunnels should whatever coursed madly through him killed him; she couldn't navigate the tunnels. She couldn't get out.

She couldn't even see.

Grimmjow trembled, anger and pain coursing together though him. He wasn't sure he could control his actions if he was near her, wasn't sure he wouldn't crush her as easily as he did the crates around him.

His squeezed his eyes shut and threw his head back, mane falling to the floor as he bellowed his frustration of pain and rage.

* * *

The rope was cut by Grimmjow, Orihime knew. She shook her head in the black tunnel, fingers wrapped in the canvas rope she'd braided. "Wait..."

She looked down at the rope, unable to see it in the dark, and then sent a panicked look into the blackness. "Grimmjow!"

She held her breath, hearing nothing but her heart now firmly lodged in her throat. Her racing heartbeat echoed in her ears, pumping blood so fast she thought her throat would explode. She picked up the rope and slowly moved along the wall, one hand on the cool stone, the other still gripping the loose rope.

She felt the tears slip down her cheeks as she cautiously followed the black of the tunnel further into the deep darkness. "Please, wait," she said more to herself. "I, please let me help." She inched forward, bare feet gripping on the damp coolness of the stone walkway. "Grimmjow... Come back."

She made her way slowly, keeping the rope in her hand, knowing it was nothing but a mere rope now. It grew lighter as she went, and just as she expected the first curve of the tunnel beneath her feet and the trail, the rope ended. She rope slipped from her hand.

"No..." She knelt and scooted to the wall, one hand feeling around for the rope end as her other hand stayed on the wall to keep her place. It took a few moments of fumbling to find the end of the rope again; it had fallen over the edge of the tunnel's edge side. She pulled it close, tears making her eyes sting and vision blur.

It didn't matter, her blurred vision, as she couldn't see anyway. She was glad more of the rope hadn't fallen over the edge from sheer weight. She pressed her back to the wall behind her, clutching the rope in her hands as she felt warm tears slide down her throat and over her collarbone, dripping beneath her gauze slip.

He'd left. Grimmjow had left her.

She sniffed, trying to recall what she'd done, what she'd said.

"I'm sorry," she whispered hopefully. She wiped her face with her palm, and then looked into the black where she knew he could be standing only feet away from her. A glimmer of hope rose in her. "Grimmjow," she said testily, not caring if he could see her tear-stained face and pathetic weakness in the dark. "Grimmjow, I'm sorry. If you're there, please come back."

Silence answered her.

She pushed the strands of hair caught at her damp cheek away from her face, not daring to release the rope or move from the wall. "Are you there?"

The only sound was her heart beating.

Orihime tried to still her breathing so she could sense him, any movement that he made. "Please tell me if you're there."

She waited. She waited for a long time. She wasn't sure how long it was, but her face dried, leaving a salty tautness to her skin. She sighed, and then slowly eased up the wall and stood, the rope still in her trembling hands.

"You're not there, are you?" she asked the darkness. She waited again, and hearing nothing, she slowly moved back down the tunnel to the chamber.

Her mind was cold and numb, aching. She found the entry to their room and went in. She dropped the rope and spent fifteen minutes fumbling in the charcoal black of very early morning moonlight trying to make a fire. Flint after flint, her shaky fingers failed.

She abandoned the fire pit and searched for more rope. She searched through every inch of the chamber, but there was no more rope. They'd used it all for the rope rails. She still had to make more. Grimmjow wanted to rail down to the colder caves where they had stored food and other supplies.

She stopped searching in the dark and stood in the center of the room, fighting the forlorn feeling of isolation. "I'm sorry," she whispered, still baffled by what had driven him from the chamber. "Please, I'm sorry..."

She pushed her tear-dampened hair from her face and went back to where she'd dropped the rope at the entry. It was still inky black out the opening, with no sound of footsteps. No sound of Grimmjow's return. She pulled the rope tight in her hands, taking up the slack. There wasn't much; the rope length barely made it back to the chamber, being the second section of rail secured to the first spike Grimmjow had made in the tunnel leading to the left out of their room.

Orihime took a deep breath and coiled it a single wind around her wrist, and then stepped back out into the passage.

She followed the rail rope still attached to the wall back to where the second section was supposed to begin, finding her way easily, keeping the loose rope in her clutch. As soon as the second section picked up, however, the loose end at her wrist was the only rope rail left, attached at the spike, but now useless. It went nowhere, cut and loose.

She put a shaky hand to the wall to her left and cautiously stepped forward, without a rail or light, with only her hand on the wall for a guide. She felt as if each step could be her last, and given that the passage stone floor was damp and slick beneath her bare feet, it may be, but she slowly moved on.

It wasn't long before she'd come to the end of the loose rope in her hands. She stopped, looking into the blackness, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Her fingers felt the sharp cut of the end of the rope, bringing on a new bout of tears seeping down her salty cheeks.

She was still looking into the black when a bellow of pain shook the passage from deep below. She flinched and took a quick step before the rope pulled her to a stop.

"Grimmjow!" She waited for his response, but there was none. "Grimmjow! Come back!" She sobbed at her words echoing back to her, bouncing off the lonely cavern walls. "Grimmjow!"

She slowly sat down, hugging to the wall. She let one foot venture out, only to pull it back quickly when her toes reached the edge of the drop-off to her right. Her mind ached from terrified wonder and the alarming realization that he was gone.

Orihime sat there for over an hour, body stiffening with unmoving coldness, seeing nothing despite her strained vigilance. Growing weary, she scooted back along the passage a few feet and tied the rope around her waist. She leaned to the cold wall, waiting.

* * *

It was near morning when Grimmjow returned to the chamber he shared with Orihime, but the passageways were still black. She was awakened to his hand on her shoulder, and it took a moment for her to realize what had happened.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, stooping to pick her up. He lifted her to her feet, arms around her waist as she unsteadily rose.

"You're...? You're back?" She grasped his arm in the dark, feeling up his skin to his neck, fingers frantically reaching for his face. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"You were supposed to stay in the room."

A sob broke from her and she wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him tightly to her as her face pressed to his chest. "You're back! Grimmjow, I thought you were gone!"

He instinctively embraced her, holding her smaller form close in a powerful hold, locking her against him as she now wept for a different reason. He let one hand ease from her back to brush her hair over her shoulder, feeling her low sobs on his chest. "It's over. You're okay, Orihime."

"But you," she said, words muffled against him. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"No. Let's go back." He chuckled, his hand sliding down her back to her waist, fingers following the rope to where it was knotted between them. "What's this? You tied yourself here?"

"Oh, I didn't want to fall off the edge." She laughed in relief that he was back, feeling him deftly untie the rope. It fell slack from her. "Why did you cut it?"

"So you wouldn't follow."

He took her hand and kept her close, at the inner wall side, as he took a few steps. She slowly kept at his side, but stopped after only a few steps.

She frowned, trying to see him in the dark.

He stopped and looked to her. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head, hand tight in his. "Something's different."

"You won't fall, Orihime." His arm came around her shoulders, draping to cross most of her back.

She didn't move, every movement he made registering differently with her. "You, you've..." She wasn't sure what she was going to say.

He sighed, fingers smoothing over her shoulder. "What?"

Orihime faced where she knew him to be on the stony passage, letting one hand follow up his arm at her shoulder. Beneath her fingers the skin was smooth, sleek and nearly hairless over the muscles of his forearm, upper arm, to his shoulder and neck. She frowned in disbelief, fingers curiously rising along his skin until she felt his throat, gently curving over his chin and to his face.

He let her fingers wander, let them glide over his jaw, his cheek, until they rested at his temple. Her other hand moved to his chest, sheepishly at first, and then with more fascination as her hand went around his waist, roaming up his smooth, bare back in eagerness, and then settling at the waistband of his pants.

"You're not... You don't have..." An awed smile came to her voice.

He moved her hand along his waist despite her shy misgivings to do so. "I'm not a beast."

Orihime let her fingers rove the back of the waistband, her fingers telling her it was true. "At all?"

His arms engulfed her again, and this time every fear she had of falling or abandonment disappeared. "At all."


	13. Chapter 13

Grimmjow's eyes opened to the blistering heat of Hueco Mundo. The pain of that first transition from cat-beast to human man was still vivid in his mind.

So was Orihime.

He much preferred to think of her arms around him that night in the cool cave centuries ago rather than his more recent memories of her.

A gust of wind gathered grains of the sand around him and blasted them into his raw arm socket at his shoulder and into his eyes. He closed his eyes against the sharp scratching under his eyelids. His shoulder was ragged and bleeding, still a painful reminder of his mistakes lately.

He should have killed Nnoitra long ago. Should have shoved Kurosaki aside and remembered Orihime as his own. Should have taken her out of that damned room where Loly and Menoly found her and ran with her then.

Where he would have run to, Grimmjow wasn't certain – someplace she would recall him, and he her.

Instead he was still half-buried in the sand with memories for comfort and a war exhausting itself somewhere near the material world and parts of Hueco Mundo.

He swallowed, feeling the sand in his throat scrape inside. Becoming a man again in his past lives long ago, before he knew of Aizen or Espada, was a memory he'd succeeded in forgetting. But now it was real again, just as Orihime was again surfacing from his past.

In his mind he was on his feet, sleeve dangling empty at his side, watching her and that shinigami walk away from him. He knew it was a shadow of his threadbare consciousness slowly toying with him.

He didn't care.

In that moment of lapse, Orihime turned from Ichigo's side and waved to him. She beckoned him to hurry and join them.

Grimmjow would have spat if he had the means to. Delusions were cruel.

But, at the moment, they were all he had of her.

He grinned, tasting sand.

And in that delusion she stopped and turned to face him. She smiled and then stepped toward him over the dune.

He opened his eyes. Sand blew into his face.

If he imagined long enough, Grimmjow decided, sighing as the blood heaved in his chest, she'd be back there, at his side, ready to make him whole again.

Just as she had before.

His hand closed over Pantera's hilt at his side as he tried to ignore the sand scratching into his eyes and injured shoulder.

He was missing more than an arm this time. It would take more than that or a number "6" to make him whole again.


	14. Colors

The cave was still dim, but day was well on its way to early afternoon. Neither Grimmjow nor Orihime had slept much the night before, each in separate agony within the cave. The weariness caught up with them.

She hadn't wanted to fall asleep. Grimmjow was new again to her and she wanted to explore that.

Well, maybe not _explore_ exactly, she had decided as she drifted to sleep beside him on the fur-lined bed, but at least understand him better in his new form as a whole man. Sleep and exhaustion had won that battle and she did sleep, soundly and with peace of mind.

Her eyes opened to the low light of the cave chamber, her first sight bringing back all the promise of the night before, leaving out the terror of those hours Grimmjow had been gone. He was back, that was all that mattered, and that he was a whole man and no remnant of the cat-beast remained was something beyond her hopes.

She focused closer on the bed and for a moment a blush pinked her cheek on his chest. She lay at his side, in the comfortable embrace of his arm over her back and waist, her knees bent to his thigh on the bed. Her first impulse was to flinch away, but she made herself stay, waiting for the heat to fade from her cheek on his chest.

That warm blush seemed to take its time fading, however, and she realized she could hear his heart beneath her temple. It was a strong heartbeat and she could see the rise and fall of his chest. The blush returned in force.

She knew she should move away, even a little, before her blush-flaming cheek woke him up, but she was too content, too attached, to leave. She did let the fingers of her hand at his stomach ease out, feeling the smooth skin there. No pelt, no fur, no cat.

She sighed, eyes closing halfway before she heard his breathing change.

"I thought you were never going to open your eyes," he said lowly.

She flinched and turned to face him. His arm anchored her close, keeping her from moving too far away.

"Oh...I..." Another quick flush of her cheeks finished the thought.

He grinned, pulling her closer so she had no choice but to relax to his chest more, her arm crossing higher on him to prop her up better. He watched her hair fall over him, gaze going to her face as she settled.

"I always wondered exactly what color auburn was," he said, his hand sliding up her back. A different sort of grin came to him as the tresses of her hair covered his hand, seeing the soft smile form on her lips.

"I guess it's more orange than brown," she said, feeling herself want to lean to his hand as his fingers rubbed against the back of her neck. Her gaze went over his face, his eyes. It seemed to her they were bluer, maybe because they were now set against his skin rather than pelt.

"You're even prettier with colors, Orihime," he said bemusedly, and then cleared his throat at the sound of his thoughts aloud. "I mean, I knew you were pretty," he said, "but this..."

She smiled as the blush eclipsed her face, head dipping as his fingers embedded in her hair. She could feel his heartbeat beneath chest, even through her dress. She looked up suddenly, her thoughts racing ahead. "Color? You mean you couldn't see color before, Grimmjow?"

He shook his head, eyes not leaving the handful of hair he let strain through his fingers at her temple. "No. I haven't seen color...in a long time. But I imagined..." His stare sharpened on her face. "You, I guess. In my mind I knew what you looked like."

She let herself relax against him. "Really? Because sometimes I imagined you, too, Grimmjow. Sometimes I think I dreamed of you, as you are now. Dreams that were so real..." She was hesitant to ask her next question. "Is it over? Is the curse gone? Will you stay like this?"

He chuckled and nodded, sitting up and bringing her with him. He leaned to the cool stone of the cave wall behind them. "Six generations. I should be the last."

She sat on her knees, carefully over his thigh, and her gaze dropped to her fingers still on his chest. "You _should_ be?" Her eyes slowly rose to his, wanting to see his face as he answered. "You may change again?"

He didn't let her sit back too far, making her remain close as she moved her knee a little to a less sensitive place over him. "I'm the last generation, Orihime. I think it's over."

She nodded, feeling strangely content despite their proximity. She'd never been so close to a man before, except Sora, and that was different. She liked it, liked the feel of his bare skin beneath her fingers, actually liked sitting on him. She let her hand run along his side to his back to where she'd seen the six small bumps earlier. The skin there was smooth, too; no sharpness at all.

"But I don't know for certain," he added as her eyes rose again. He frowned at the confusion in her face. "I don't know about the future. About," he said, seeing her expression change to expectation. "About children."

Orihime couldn't help but feel the emotional jolt reach her face, but she didn't recoil. She sighed slowly, nodding. "...Yes."

He took her chin in his fingers in a gentle hold and made her look him squarely in the eyes. "You would accept children that...children that might be half-cat?"

She realized she'd thought about it, on some level of thinking that she didn't access very often, the same place that imagined Grimmjow as a man and not a beast. "I would never spurn my child. Our child," she added with a small smile and slight pink to her cheeks. "I would love any child...we had."

He nodded. Reluctantly he looked away from her, watching the strips of sunlight thread through the cracks in the cave walls out of sight. The slants of light among the shadows were enough to let him see the chamber in color for the first time, and he realized there was very little color to be seen. Grays and shadows – not much color for a girl like Orihime. Not much for a child, either.

He scowled. Little color and even less light, unless she followed the roped passages he'd strung. It wasn't a life for a girl, a woman. Any flower would wilt in such an environment. His attention returned to Orihime.

She studied his face, more at ease as she sat across his leg, still within his hold, her fingertips soft on his chest. She blushed anew at being caught watching his gaze survey the room. She smiled a bit, nervousness evident in the slight pressing of her thigh against his.

"I...uh, are you hungry?" she asked, losing to the blush.

He watched her eyelashes lower and then lift slowly, seeing hesitancy in her eyes. "I'm starving."

* * *

They ate and discussed a few matters of the cave, the usual talk over water and visiting the ledge. The matter of clothing, for him this time, came up, and while he balked a bit at adding to his attire, he couldn't ignore the new feeling of nakedness he had being hairless. They made a trip into the lower caves.

Orihime was excited to see them this time. Her feet were warm and Grimmjow's hand over hers was that of a man, no remnant of a cat to the touch. He'd retied the passageway ropes to the wall as he returned that morning, and now there were more knots than before. She looked up at the back of him. He was tall and she couldn't see past him, but every now and then the cracks of light in other parts of the caves let her see his silhouette. Her fingers tightened in his.

"Can you see?" she asked.

"Yeah, I can still see," he said, "but not quite as well as before. Don't worry, I know the way well enough."

She nodded, confident in his answer. "How did it happen?" she asked after a few more moments of following the curving passages.

His grip on her hand tugged slightly. "I just woke up feeling too warm, and then...then it got worse. I didn't know what it was."

She guessed there was more, but it was enough of an answer. "I'm glad you're back and all right, Grimmjow."

He chuckled. "Better than ever."

She was about to say more when the floor took a sudden decline and she made several quick steps forward, right into his back to keep herself from falling. He swept an arm around her without dropping her hand, putting her at his side in a snug embrace.

"The entrance is right ahead," he said, bending to her ear. "I'll light a torch inside."

She nodded. Neither could see enough now, but she liked his proximity. For a moment she only stared up, knowing he was still close by the way his voice hung just over her head. The fingers of her left hand tentatively went to his right side, just where she knew the six points of glass were beneath his skin. They were gone.

"Did you take them out?" she asked, fingers still on the spot, feeling him turn more to her.

"No. They're just gone."

She nodded.

A moment later they stepped into the cave's entry, where the floor was still cold, but where different smells now met Orihime's nose.

Grimmjow released her hand. A moment later a torch was lit and the light danced along the cave walls. Inside it was just a cave chamber, but this one had barrels and chests against two of the walls and rolls of fabric and rugs against another. Beyond was an opening and from there came the distinct smell of game.

Grimmjow lit a second torch that was anchored to another wall and Orihime looked around more. One of the chest's tops was open and a few items of clothing had been pulled hastily out.

"Oh, this is where you got your pants," she said, going immediately to the chest. She opened the lid and took out a tan shirt. "Aren't you cold?" She turned to look at him as he went to the chest beyond her and righted a few rolls of canvas so that they were standing like sheaves of straw. She watched his back, seeing the muscles there tighten as he moved. She wondered if he was sensitive to the cold yet. She stood and stepped to him.

He straightened and looked down as she met him.

"Here," she said, holding up the shirt against his chest. She smiled as she smoothed the material over him, estimating its fit. "Are the sleeves long enough?"

He let her measure the shirt along his arm, watching the top of her hair as she stood close. "It'll fit."

She looked up, her hands stilling against his chest and arm. "Do you want to wear it?"

He took the shirt and pulled it on, gaze still on her as she watched the material fold over him.

"Go through the chests and get whatever you need," he said, settling the shirt over him better. He watched her eyes go to the chests and spare items washed up from shipwrecks. "There are all sorts of things here."

She was already looking at a few items in one chest that was open. It was crammed with metalwork that shone silver and gold in the flickering torchlight. "Grimmjow," she said slowly, "you have so much here."

He followed her attention. "Just wash-ups, Orihime."

She giggled and knelt at the chest, then picked out a silver candlestick. "This is real silver," she said, rubbing a bit of tarnish from the base. Her mother had taught her some knowledge of precious metals, although usually in the form of jewelry and coins. She used the hem of her skirt to shine the pedestal of the holder. "This ship had a wealthy passenger or merchant."

He nodded, crouching near her. "Just shiny," he said, turning the candlestick still in her hands. "So that's silver."

She remembered what he'd said about color. She nodded, smiling. "And gold," she said, pulling a smaller cup from the chest. It had been wrapped in a brocade cloth, but was a bit dingy from condensation. She rubbed it with her skirt. "You have a treasure down here." She looked around at the other chests. Most were stuffed, lids slightly open to expose material or bundles of clothing, but a few had metal objects.

"It's a cup," he said with a shrug. "I never brought up much; you villagers always brought offerings in wooden or pottery vessels, so there was no need to bring up any of this."

She looked slowly to him. "You had all this down here and never used it?"

"Never needed it." He watched her blush in the candlelight. "Still don't. We have cups and bowls."

She nodded and carefully set the items back in the chest.

He stood up. "If you want to use them, bring them up." He moved off across the cave into the shadows where the next chamber's entry was darker. "What do you want to eat? We have lamb, pig, and duck."

When he looked back to her, she was at his side, peering into the dark of the frozen cave room. "Duck."

* * *

It took an hour to thaw the duck in their chamber and another hour to cook it. The third hour was spent eating, and at the end of that, the sunny day had turned into a rainy evening.

Orihime saw none of the cloudiness or rain, but she could hear the sounds of the raindrops dripping through the crevices in the cave walls that fed the water system. She stood in the corner where she usually changed clothes, watching Grimmjow near the fire pit.

The fire was low, the room too warm, and the shadow he threw to the wall now contained the image of a sword. She'd seen the few weapons in the first room of the frozen cave that afternoon, but hadn't paid them much mind. She watched him turn the sword, his gaze going over the length of shiny steel as he judged its weight.

Orihime turned and undressed, whisking her dress off and fumbling in the dim light for her gauze sleeping slip. She'd heard the wolves that day and they sounded closer than usual. Grimmjow had heard them, too, and she wondered if he felt any differently now that he was without his natural defenses that came with feline influences.

She turned and smoothed her slip, feeling too warm despite the light material. Grimmjow had leaned the sword against the wall and was now watching her.

She felt the usual blush, but this time it wasn't quite as strong; she recalled he was without his heightened senses, and perhaps he couldn't see through the sheerness of her slip anymore.

By the disappointed scowl on his face, she assumed she was correct.

"Isn't it too warm in here for that?" he asked, watching her return to the fire and sit a few feet from the pit.

"Oh, it's not...too..." She left off speaking as he pulled off his shirt and dropped it to floor. He fished something out of one pants pocket and sat beside her. Despite seeing him nearly naked for several weeks, his discarding of the shirt made her thoughts scatter. She blinked at him, trying to collect her words. "It is a little warm, I guess..."

He nodded, gaze on the swoop of her neckline. "We could have brought up anything else you wanted, Orihime. We don't have to use these dishes and cups." His fingers closed over something she couldn't see in his hand. "Anything you want down there is yours."

"I don't need anything." She looked to each of his eyes, wondering if he knew the depth of their blueness.

He nodded, watching the firelight play over her hair. He put one hand to a strand of hair at her shoulder, feeling its softness as the tresses turned shades of amber and fiery orange in his fingers. He let the strands fall, sliding his hand to her neck, following the contours of her shoulder to her throat. Beneath his fingers he could feel her pulse quicken as she looked up at him, the color of her eyes lost in the shadows as he leaned down to her face.

Orihime wasn't aware she'd moved, but when his hand went to the back of her neck, her lips met his in a firm kiss. She didn't hesitate, not like she thought she would in the times she imagined the contact in her dreams. His arms came around her, sweeping her into a full embrace that brought her to her knees. He kissed her lips for a long moment, the first awkwardness passing quickly.

She wanted to smile at the fervent touch, but didn't, instead content to let the cave dissolve around them as his mouth moved to one corner of her lips, kissing a smooth invitation that made her hands press to his back, her breath lagging in the suddenly overly warm room.

He let her part a few inches, watching her eyes open, seeming, to him, larger than seconds before. Her face was flushed, heartbeat against his throbbing stronger as she remained close in his arms. He kissed her slowly again, watching her eyes close, feeling her warm exhale as she leaned to him without reservation.

He drew back a bit more and let his arm slide up behind her back.

She blinked in bewilderment as he settled a strand of colorful beads and gold chain over her, letting the weighty necklace lace her skin. She nearly gasped at the glint of gold and sparkle of gemstones that surrounded her. "Grimmjow...?"

He kissed her mouth as she looked down, trying to see the necklace that was draped between them. "You don't belong in a cave, Orihime." She looked up and he kissed her lips for a fleeting moment. "This is no place for you, without color, in the shadows."

"But..." She shook her head, confusion bringing a faster beat to her already spiking pulse. "You...you don't want me here?"

He grinned, letting one hand embed in her hair as he tilted her head to kiss her neck before looking her in the eyes again. "Think about leaving here. Together. We'll go somewhere we can be a real man and woman."

She nodded slowly, smiling more. "We can be happy here, too, Grimmjow."

A sudden howl of wolves broke the sound of rainwater running along the cave inlets. It sounded even closer than earlier.

Orihime saw Grimmjow's gaze go to the sword at the stone wall.

"I'll stay here with you," she said softly. "If you want me to. Or anywhere you want us to go, I'll go."

He let her ease away, feeling the reluctance in her posture. "I'm going to get rid of that noise. Go on to bed. I'll be back soon."

She bit her lip as he stood and pulled on the shirt and then grabbed the sword.

She was about to speak when a chorus of wolves howled from nearby. She shivered, knowing there was a pack. "Can you wait, Grimmjow? Until morning?"

He stopped at the chamber entry and glanced to her, seeing her hands twist the lowest blue bead in the necklace. In the dim light of the dying fire, she was a dark form highlighted by only a glimmer of amber tresses.

"I don't want any of them near us." He turned the sword in his hands. "They shouldn't be this close now."

She nodded, watching him dissolve into the dark of the entryway. "Be careful," she said, "and come back soon."

* * *

**Author's Note:** _Thanks for reading and reviewing! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!_

Poll is up. Please vote!


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